Loyal to the End
by abstow89
Summary: War has broken out all over Battleon and Darkovia, and a lone Werewolf Warrior named Howndst must try to stop it all in time.
1. Something to Sink Your Teeth Into

**Loyal to the End**

**Summary: A full out war has been declared between several factions of Battleon creatures, especially in Darkovia. This is just the story of a Werewolf Warrior named Howndst trying to survive it all. Rated T for language and massive violence.**

Something to Sink Your Teeth Into

It was exactly 2:35 a.m. on one of the darkest mornings in the forests of Darkovia. The wars had broken out days ago, and all the chaos was beginning to spread across the lands. There wasn't exactly any concrete reason on how or why it started at all, except it had something to do with power or treasure, like always. The Were-King and Safiria had wars all the time, so why was it acting like a virus, infecting everyone and spreading everywhere so quickly…? No one knew for sure, except that it wasn't going to end soon.

In the midst of all the chaos, a lone green furred Werewolf Warrior named Howndst got caught in the middle of it, and now he was sitting inside of the vampires' castle, his hands tied behind a chair, his whole body bruised and scarred. The vampires caught him by surprise and decided since he was quickly rising ranks, they were going to interrogate him until he confessed all he knew. He had been in the same room with no light whatsoever besides the moon to see. Two vampire lords were currently standing next to him, talking about him.

"I don't see why someone like the Were-King would even bother accepting you into his forces. You not as tough as I thought you were."

"Yeah…or as tall for that matter."

"Let's face it Arkst: He's nothing. Just another foul-smelling werewolf with bad breath, like they all are. Maybe that's why you guys came in last place during the last war we had. They're all pussies. I wouldn't be surprised if some random person shot an arrow through the Were-king's head right now."

Both of the vampire lords sighed heavily, wondering what to do with Howndst.

"So what should we do now Arkst?"

"We've been here torturing this hairy beast for the last seven hours. Let's just let him sit in the darkness for a while."

Both of the vampires began to walk out the door.

"You guys are wrong…you know that right?" said Howndst, weakly.

The vampires turned to look at Howndst.

"The Lycans…will never lose to the likes of you creatures. No matter how many of us you slaughter, in the end, you're still gonna lose. Just because we lost last time, doesn't mean you won either. If anything, you should be focusing on the Werepyres, but you're too stupid to do that even."

Howndst did this menacing, growling laugh and muttered, "You're all gonna die."

Arkst responded by lashing at him twice in the face, leaving another huge scar.

"See, that's why we got a little _surprise _on our side…something not even a dracopyre could escape from. You just watch…we're gonna be the victor of this war. You'll see…"

**Meanwhile…**

Scattered across the Darkovian soil were countless numbers of vampire and werewolf warriors, all brutally slaughtered and killed by their rivals. It was almost impossible to take even one step without getting blood on your foot. The smell of the bodies was enough to make even the werewolves gag and even vomit all over themselves. It's not like the situation was better anywhere else, but Darkovia had it worse. Only a week had gone since the wars began, and hundreds if not thousands of casualties have already been reported.

Besides all the dead bodies was a small clan of werewolves searching through them all. They were lead by a furry blue Alpha Werewolf named Harkst, who was currently ripping apart a Vamp Handmaiden's chest, eating her heart.

"Must you always do that Harkst?" asked Twarzy, one of the werewolf warriors.

"Why not?! They taste good enough and everyone says that by eating one, you gain the power of the enemy you've just killed. And I just killed one of Safiria's Vamp Handmaidens."

"It looks like this area has been cleared of any vampire scum. Should we find another sector to clean up or retreat back to the Were-King?"

Harkst smiled. "We're gonna slay as many vampires as we can until our Were-King says to stop."

"What if we--"

"If you're too scared to face your own fears you can go back to your mudhole and hide like the coward you are Twarzy!"

Twarzy sighed. "No, you're right. We're gonna win this war this time. There's no way we're letting those undead creatures rule this world. Let's go get 'em!"

* * *

"I'm gonna go outside and start patrolling the skies, see if our fellow vampires need anymore help."

"Gotcha. I'll watch this werewolf and make sure he doesn't escape." said Arkst

The other vampire lord walked outside the room and locked the door, leaving Arkst and Howndst alone in the dark. It was completely silent. Nothing could be heard besides the sound of the two creatures exhaling and inhaling slowly. They could even heard Arkst's friend's wings flapping in the distance when he took off, casting a shadow through the barred window. Howndst sighed heavily, his breath visible in the cold air.

"You realize I'm going to kill you and get out of here, right?"

"Really? How's that gonna happen werewolf?"

"You vampires think us Lycans are stupid, living by the concept of brawns-over-brains, but some us are a lot smarter than you think. See, I've examined these ropes and realized that I can't scratch through 'em or try and break 'em with my wrists. So I'm gonna dislocate my arm and lift it over my head, tearing through the ropes with my teeth, eventually walking out that door."

"You forgot one thing smartass. How are you gonna get past me?"

"I'm gonna kick you in the nuts and you'll knell close enough for me to bite out your throat."

Arkst started to choke Howndst really hard, almost yanking out his throat.

"You vampires are so goddamn ignorant and stupid! I just told you how I'm going to kill you and how I'm going to escape and you can't even pick up your sword and slit my throat right!"

"Yeah?! If you're so smart, why haven't you--?"

Arkst screamed when Howndst bit down on his hand and kicked him in the groin. Then he opened up his mouth wide and bit down on his throat. Blood splattered all over the walls and on Howndst's face. But he didn't care, in fact he was laughing in a muffled way, baffled by Arkst's stupidity. He finally let go of Arkst's neck, most of it obliterated by Howndst's bloody teeth. Like he said, Howndst's painfully dislocated his arm and pulled it over his head, gnawing on the ropes until he was free.

Howndst laughed and muttered, "Pathetic bloodsuckers."

Then he screamed horribly when he popped his arm back in its socket, breathing heavily afterward. It didn't matter though. He was free.


	2. Reign of Chaos

Reign of Chaos

Howndst groggily walked outside the prison chamber, trying to be as sneaky as possible. Even though he got away, the castle was still crawling with vampires. And the last thing Howndst wanted to do was take on Safiria alone, especially in his state. He needed to find his clan leader, Harkst as soon as possible…but since he was already in the castle, he might as well take out a few vampires in the process.

"Hey, do you get the feeling we're being watched right now?" asked a vampire warrior.

Howndst suddenly jumped inside a trash bin, hiding from the two warriors.

"You always get the feeling we're being watched."

"Cause we are! Do you have any idea how many times a clan of werewolves have snuck up behind me and tried killing me?"

"How many?"

"A lotta times Gax. A lot of times…"

"Well that's why we're partners. So we can watch each other's backs in case something happens to us."

"Yeah…I'm gonna go patrol in the kitchen for now. See you later."

The two vampires walked away in opposite directions. Howndst waited a while before he jumped out the trash can and followed the vampire who went into the kitchen. He crept behind a counter and grabbed a knife out from the drawers, gripping it firmly and taking aim at the vampire warrior. He waited a while and studied his movements, making sure he was in a position where he wouldn't be able to catch the knife with his quick reflexes. The warrior suddenly stopped to scratch the back of his head, which was when Howndst threw the knife. The warrior groaned lightly and grabbed the knife that was stuck in the back of his neck, only to fall over on the ground, succumbing to his wound.

"Hey, Bates. You in here Bates?" asked Gax.

Howndst hid behind the counter again, this time taking position underneath a table. He heard the vampire sniff the air and knew that he caught his scent.

"What the hell--"

Howndst instantly charged towards the vampire, biting him in the chest. Gax dropped his sword and started fighting with Howndst, kicking him twice in the stomach and punching him in the face. Howndst responded by kicking him into the wall and biting him again. Howndst lashed at his eye, leaving a huge scar on it. Gax took out a knife and tried stabbing Howndst right in the head. He grabbed his arm and the two of them were grunting heavily, trying to kill the other creature. Howndst kneed Gax in the stomach and put his whole arm over Gax's neck. He started panting when Howndst lifted his leg in the air, propelling his head on his knee. Then Howndst pressed down on it, cracking his neck in the process. Howndst took the knife and walked away.

**3:22 a.m.**

Howndst was hiding inside a series of vents that ran throughout the castle. He had to take out the Vampire Lord Vonkil before he searched for his Werewolf pack and reunited with Harkst. Lucky for him, he found his Royal LycanBow stowed away in one of the weapons lockers, amongst a few other things. Howndst quietly waited inside the vents, aiming an arrow right through one of the grates. A short clan of vampire warriors were patrolling the hallway when one of them suddenly stopped, sensing that something was out of order.

"What is it Lyle?" asked a warrior.

"I just got this feeling that--"

Lyle suddenly groaned loudly when an arrow penetrated his skull, killing him almost instantly.

"Sound the alarm! There's a Lycan--"

Another warrior groaned when he was impaled by three arrows to the chest. Now only two of them were left. Howndst jumped out of the air ventilation system and landed on the ground, growling at the vampires with his burning red eyes piercing their skin.

"I know you…you're that smart Werewolf that Harkst trained aren't you?!" said the warrior with worry.

"In the flesh."

Howndst took out his sword and the three of them started swords-fighting. Howndst kept clacking his sword against the Vampspear and the other warrior's sword, amazed that neither of them was able to even cut his fur off by mistake. He sat there and started toying with the young warriors, cutting them on their arms and feet and kicking them down with no effort at all. Then the warriors would rise back up and start dueling with all their strength, only to get knocked back down again.

"That's enough fun for now." muttered Howndst.

The warrior with the Vampspear yelled ferociously and charged towards Howndst, ready to impale him. But Howndst twisted the other warrior's arm so hard he veered right into the spear's path, inevitably getting stabbed in the torso. The other warrior slowly took out the spear and looked down in shock, confused and upset over what happened. Then he suddenly grunted and felt a sharp pain in his stomach…a sword. He looked up and was staring straight into Howndst's eyes.

"It is truly amazing how stupid you bloodsuckers are."

Then Howndst's took out the sword and walked away, leaving the warrior to bleed to death.

* * *

Vonkil and six of his warriors were stationed near one of Safiria's main food storage facilities, torturing another squad of Lycan warriors and their black furred Alpha Werewolf named Fliowtoes.

"Let's try this one…more…time: Where are the other Werewolf clans going to be by sunrise?" asked Vonkil calmly.

Fliowtoes merely smiled and laughed weakly. Vonkil responded by stabbing him in the sides, cutting open his kidney.

"It doesn't have to be this painful. Just tell me what I want to know."

"This is nothing. I get sliced in the kidneys like this all the time almost everyday. The only way you're gonna make me talk is through castration…but you Vampires are too 'civilized' to torture your enemies like that."

Fliowtoes shrugged.

"Guess you'll have to kill me."

"What if I kill your little warriors first? Think about what the Were-King'll do to you when he finds out that one of his own Alpha Werewolves couldn't even protect his own--"

Vonkil suddenly gasped sharply when an arrow entered his ear. His body lurched sideways and he dropped his sword, falling to the ground.

"What the hell?!" yelled a Vampire warrior.

Howndst took his bow and shot all of them through their skulls with his many LycanBow arrows. Then he jumped down from the higher platform and went over to Fliowtoes, cutting him and his warriors from their restraints.

"Thanks Howndst."

"It was nothing. I figured since I was captured and I'm already here, I might as well start a little more target practice."

"You know where your leader Harkst is? I was thinking we could join forces as head to Battleon and regroup with any other Lycans caught in the crossfire."

Howndst sniffed the air and got a whiff of Harkst's scent.

"Of course I know where Harkst is, he's got the smelliest feet out of all you Alpha Werewolves."

Fliowtoes laughed. "Yeah, I got a nice whiff of 'em once! Smelled like a dragon's dung pile!"

"Yeah. Let's go find him before more vampires show up."

* * *

Howndst, Fliowtoes, and his warriors joined up with Harkst's squad of Werewolves after walking from the castle for nearly an hour.

"What the hell have you two been up to?!" demanded Harkst.

"Getting tortured by those slimy bloodsuckers. What've you guys been doing?"

"What does it look like? We've been killing vampires left and right!" said Twarzy.

"It doesn't matter. We need to get back to Battleon and wait for the Were-King so we can figure the next attack patterns." advised Howndst.

"Who made you in charge?" asked Harkst.

"What're you talking about? You're the one who's in charge."

"Don't play games with me Howndst. Just because you're so much smarter than us doesn't make you better."

"Yeah, it does."

"All right hotshot, you think you're so smart? Then tell me where the Were-King is now. All of us lost his scent and are too far away to hear his howling." demanded Harkst.

"He's taking a dump 10, maybe 12 miles in that direction." said Howndst, pointing behind him and smiling smirkly.

Harkst growled at him and looked like he was about to attack, until Fliowtoes stopped the two.

"The fight is with those pale bloodsuckers, not each other Harkst. Get over the fact his brain's bigger than yours." said Fliowtoes.

Harkst growled under his throat, not knowing what to say next.

"Fine…but I lead the pack Howndst. Got it?!"

"Yes, sir. I won't let you down."

"You'd better not…"


	3. Another Day, Another Werewolf

Another Day, Another Werewolf

Normally, the sun would be rising in any sort of town, but this is Darkovia we're talking about. Instead of being pitch black, it was just dark outside like it would look like in the evening. It was six a.m. and the darkness was beginning to fade in Darkovia, becoming a tiny bit brighter than usual. Harkst and his warriors weren't too far away from Battleon, and the second they got there, they'd be reunited with the Were-King and his little squad of elite bodyguards and his son. Hopefully he would be able to explain the events that were going on.

Harkst and his squad arrived in Battleon, ignoring the various dead Paladin warriors and undead skeleton bodies. There were even a few earth dragons lying here and there, succumbing to various arrow shots to the back. Harkst and his squad entered Yulgar's abandoned (and nearly destroyed) hotel, resting inside.

"All right pups get your weapons together and look for any spare items we can use." said Harkst.

"There's not that much here we can salvage; all the residents took most of the weapons already." said Krazat, a dark blue furred Lycan warrior.

"Just take what you guys can find. We'll figure out the rest when the Were-King gets here."

**8:32 a.m.**

Over two hours had gone by before the Were-King and his warriors had arrived at the hotel. Many of them had been badly wounded, including the Were-King himself. His team was only a half hour away, but they were ambushed by four squads of Vamps and had to deal with them before they got to the rendezvous point.

"Lord Were-King! Are you alright?" asked Harkst.

The Were-King chuckled.

"Don't worry about me. It's only a scratch…or 35 scratches in my case."

"What happened to you?" asked Howndst.

"A bunch of Safiria's Vamps decided to ambush us when we were off guard. Gilz and Ryly didn't make it and we barely escaped with our lives."

"Those goddamn bloodsuckers!" shouted Harkst.

He yelled and threw some glass container at the wall, breaking it.

"Calm down Harkst, you're gonna give yourself another heart attack." muttered Howndst.

Harkst ignored him and focused back on the Were-King.

"Anyway, now that you're here, what should we do? This war just flared up outta nowhere and caught us off guard. It hasn't even been a week yet and we've lost over 3500 Lycans."

"There's millions more where that came from, and as far as I can tell, Safiria's the one who's losing the most casualties."

"Not if the Werepyres suddenly decide to step in--"

"That's not gonna happen Howndst." Harkst butted in.

"We said that the last war and look who won. Howndst's got a point Harkst." said the Were-King.

Fliowtoes scratched his head.

"So what do we do Were-King? We can't just go out there killing vampires and Werepyres left and right. We need a new strategy and fast!" said Fliowtoes.

"Who are you to say what _I _instruct my warriors to do?!"

"Just a suggestion. I mean, all of Lore's at war right now. It's like all hell's breakin' lose and we're caught in the middle!"

"He's right Dad. Just yesterday me and Twarzy were attack by a fleet of ice dragons."

"Yeah, and Krazat and Winston told me some Paladins attacked them out of nowhere."

"Gotta admit boss, Paladins don't go hunting for a small group of Lycans…" added Krazat.

The Were-King thought long and hard for a moment, trying to ponder what everyone just told him. So far, only vampires and a few vampire hunters had attacked him and his personal squad of Werewolves. He had no idea that the whole kingdom was fighting each other in the bloodiest war that has ever been known in Lore.

"I think we should go back to Darkovia. We could save any more Lycans in need and form this huge army. After that, we'll simply attack the vampires and Werepyres with full force until they're all gone." suggested Krazat.

"Sounds good to me." said Howndst.

"What if…we start attacking all the armies around Lore, recruiting anyone who wants to be turned into a Werewolf? This way, we'll have a bigger army AND some allies from other races? Y'know, like Clawgs, Dragons, Pirates, Ninjas, stuff like that. We could take over Lore in favor of the Werewolves!" said Harkst.

"That's sounds better." said the Were-King.

"That's suicide! Look, we focus on Lore _after _we re-take Darkovia. If we separate ourselves from defeating the vampires, we're gonna come back to Darkovia and find out it's running rampant with those bloodsuckers!" said Howndst.

"More land, more recruits dumbass." snarled Harkst.

"More werewolves, more recruits. More recruits, better chances of taking over land without anyone else interfering dumbass." said Krazat.

"Shut up, Krazat! The more armies we defeat, the more scared others will be, including the vampires Howndst."

"We were scared of Nightbane and Wolfwing, and we still fought them now, didn't we?" said Fliowtoes.

Harkst growled viciously, angry at the Lycans who ungratefully were plotting to go against him.

"YOU WILL NOT GO AGAINST YOUR LEADER!!" he yelled.

Fliowtoes scoffed and said,

"I got the same rank as you. I never trained under you and I'm not part of your clan. You don't tell me what to do just cause it's not going in your direction."

A twinkle went off in Harkst's eye and the two Alpha Werewolves grabbed each other's neck, choking one another.

"SHUT UP!!!" roared the Were-King breaking the table with his fist.

The two of them were startled by the Were-King outburst and let go of each other.

"You guys are like two dogs bitching over the biggest bone when there's a pile of smaller bones lying in the corner! Get your heads straight so we can work together on this! And if you can't work with each other, I have no problem ripping both of your throats out right here, right now!"

Harkst and Fliowtoes angrily glared at each other.

"The battle's out there, not in here. I cannot have anyone conspiring against each other and starting a civil war. Are we clear?!"

"I got it." muttered Fliowtoes.

"Crystal." said Harkst.

"Now…since you guys can't act like fully bred Werewolves and act like pups, we're gonna have to flop back and forth. First…we're gonna go back to Darkovia--"

"Sir--"

"Your mouth opens again Harkst and you're waking up with your balls where your eyes should be."

Harkst quickly shut his mouth.

"Like I was saying, we're gonna go back to Darkovia, save a few Werewolf clans, and escort 'em back to one of our medical centers. Then we're gonna head straight for an ice dragon lair to find some more weapons. After that, the Werewolves we saved and the three squads in here are gonna go on a bounty mission, killing any Werepyre that gets in our way. Does that make everyone happy???"

"I can deal with that. I finally get to kill my first Werepyre anyway." said Krazat.

"Okay then. Everyone get your weapons."

All the Werewolves grabbed their Lycan Slashers and LycanBows, making sure they armed themselves with enough arrows. Then they all turned around and began walking outside, ready to go.

"ALL RIGHT, LET'S MOVE IT OUT!"


	4. The Tip of the Arrow

The Tip of the Arrow

Three clans of Werewolves, making a total of 16, were walking through a battle torn Darkovia, searching for any more fellow Lycans in need. But most of the Werewolves they found were all lying face down or were clearly in a deceased state. Over an hour had gone by and still, nothing had changed even a little bit. The only thing that happened so far was that Twarzy found a Fearsome DuaLight somehow impaled in an Alpha Werewolf's chest, which he pulled out and took for himself. All in all, they werewolves were a tad bit…bored and dissatisfied. They expected the whole forest to be littered with Werepyres and Vampires and Werewolves, brawling with each other left and right. But instead, nothing was there…just a pile of reeking bones and bodies for them to step over or trip on.

"This isn't working. There isn't anything here but a pile of bodies and bones for us to suck on!!" said Twarzy.

"Yeah! And they're all dried out!!" said Krazat, spitting out a bone.

"So what're you guys saying, that you wanna go back to Battleon and just leave our fellow Lycans to slaughter???" asked Howndst.

"They mean there are no Werewolves here in need of rescuing so we should just leave and go somewhere else. Right, Were-King?" said Harkst, nudging him on the shoulder.

"No. There's a bunch of my warriors in this section of the forest; half of them probably captured by those bloodsuckers."

"How do you know that?"

"Cause we can _smell _them you idiot."

"How else do you think I found out that the Were-King was defecating 10 miles from where we were standing?" asked Howndst.

The Were-King gasped and his eyes grew wide.

"How'd you know where I was taking a sh--?!"

"Okay, subject change: So you're positive more Lycans are here?" asked the Were-King's son, quickly swerving off the subject.

"Never underestimate the power of a Lycan's nose." said Howndst, smiling.

"Okay then. Harkst, take your team and go that way. My team will head that way and look for more Vampires. Fliowtoes, take your team back that way. We'll all meet back here in an hour."

"Yes, sir!" said all the Werewolves.

* * *

Harkst and his clan had been searching for another half hour, scavenging through the bodies for more swords and arrows. Harkst himself even snuck behind his clan so he could swallow a couple more vampire hearts.

"I thought you said that only works for victims _you've _defeated?" Twarzy pointed out.

"A heart is a heart no matter where its been."

"So all the stuff you said earlier was bullcrap???"

"Shut up and let me eat the damn heart!"

The clan continued to traverse deeper into the woods, until they heard a howl far away in the distance. Howndst's ear twitched.

"I think that was Renz-Furr…"

"That yellow Warrior who always slacks off and eats my fried mini BURPs when I'm not looking?!" said Krazat.

"Dude, I hate that guy!" said Twarzy.

"Regardless, he's still got Lycanthropy pumping in his blood, so that makes it our duty to help him…even if he is an ass." said Harkst.

Howndst was ready to say some smart-ass comment, just to piss off Harkst and make him look like an idiot again. But he was right, it was time for them to help a fellow Lycan in need.

"Okay. You and Howndst go hide up in those trees and take out your LycanBows and aim it at the vampires. The rest of us will stay down here and ambush them when they're distracted." Harkst instructed.

"Yeah! We get to do some sniping!"

"Keep it down Krazat! You want them to hear us?"

"Sorry." he whispered.

Krazat and Howndst made sure they were careful and didn't step on any twigs or leaves, treading carefully in the dirt. Howndst quickly scurried up a tree and Krazat hopped branch to branch until he got to the top. Both of them took out their Basic LycanBows and aimed them at the two Vampire Lords, who were currently torturing the Warriors and their Alpha Werewolves, all of whom had their arms tied behind thick wooden planks stuck in the ground. One of the Lords kicked a Warrior in the face, only prompting him to spit blood at the Vampire.

"Do you seriously think we'd cower to the likes of you?!" snarled the Alpha Werewolf.

"We just wanna know what you were doing to our 2nd flying Division, that's all."

The Alpha Werewolf chuckled.

"Oh, you mean that patrol unit Safiria created just to fly around and spy on us?"

"Yes, that one."

"Well, after we killed 'em all, we decided to um…"

"YOU ATE THE SECOND FLYING DIVISION?!!?"

The Alpha Werewolf scoffed.

"Hmph! They weren't valuable enough to eat. So we just used their skin as toilet paper." he laughed.

The Vampire Lord lashed his claws on the Werewolf's face, leaving four giant scars deep enough to see the tissue. He took out a FireBlood Blade at put it at the Werewolf's neck.

"You filthy Lycans disgust me, you know that?"

"And you Vampires are pussies! So what?!"

The Vampire Lord stabbed him in the torso, causing him to cough up blood.

"Damnit, Howndst, they're gonna kill him! Should I fire now or what?" asked Krazat.

"Not until I get a clear shot. We gotta take out the Lords first."

"You do realize how this is gonna end, right?" asked the Alpha Werewolf.

"I think I do." chuckled the Lord.

"…So you know your whole squad is about to die when four Werewolves come down that hill and the other two shoot you full of arrows???"

"What! You son of a--"

"NO!" yelled Krazat.

The Vampire Lord slashed his FireBlood Blade across the Alpha Werewolf's face, killing him instantly. Just as he was about to kill Renz-Furr, Howndst muttered, "Gotcha!" and released his arrow, along with Krazat. The arrows soared through the air and stopped when they entered the back of the Lords' throat, shattering the vocal cords and causing blood to squirt out. The Vampire Lords slowly fell to the ground and died.

"Holy crap, AMBUSH!!" yelled a Vampire Warrior.

Harkst and the others surprised the vampires, stabbing them all to pieces. Howndst shot out two arrows at once and shot two Warriors in the chest. Krazat was firing arrows so fast that he lost count of how many Vampires he killed after five fell down. Only ten seconds had passed and there were only two Vampire Warriors left.

"I'm getting out of here!" yelled a scared Vampire.

"No, you're not." retorted Twarzy, stabbing the Warrior in the back and twisting the blade.

"Guys, there's another bloodsucker in the shack; go get him!" said Renz-Furr.

The last Vampire Warrior threw his Sharpened VampSpear at random, hitting one of the captured Werewolves in the back of the head. Harkst growled angrily, gritting his teeth and followed the Warrior inside, dropping his sword and cracking his knuckles. He was gonna kill this Vampire up close and personal.

"Uh-oh."

Harkst roared and jumped on the Warrior, tearing away at his back, ripping out his spine with his bare teeth. Then, as usual, he pulled out his heart with his teeth and swallowed it whole.

"Can someone untie me now?" asked Renz-Furr.

Twarzy cut off the ropes of all the remaining Warriors.

"Damnit, they killed Hragg-Ton and Muskinss!" shouted a Warrior.

"There's nothing we can do about it now. Just join our group for a while since your leader seems a little…dead." said Twarzy.

Renz-Furr glanced at Krazat.

"Hey, you're that Lycan whose BURPs I always steal!"

"Yes, now shut up."

"Enough with the chic-chat pups! We got another job to do!" said Harkst,

"What?"

Harkst belched and said, "There's another clan of Lycans pinned down not far from here and it sounds like they can use our help. Let's go!"

* * *

Harkst and his Lycan Warriors walked all the way to a dried out lake in the middle of Darkovia. It was dark and not full of any form of life at all, except for a few Evil Eyes that fluttered past the Werewolves heads.

"I thought you said some Warriors needed our--"

"Shut up and hold on a second." said Howndst, taking out three arrows.

"What're you--"

Howndst fired all three arrows simultaneously at the trees in the distance, even though it looked like he was aiming blindly. But suddenly, three Vamps groaned and fell out of the trees, arrows in their chest and stomach.

"Damn, how do you see that far??" asked Renz-Furr.

"Experience. Pure and Simple. You fire one of these long enough and your eyesight will allow you to see a speck of dust land on someone's nose." explained Howndst.

"I should really trade in my Slasher for one of those."

"We get it! Howndst can see really far away! Just stop jabbering so we can save more of our Lycan brethren!" shouted Harkst.

Harkst and his team ran quickly across the deserted lake and up the hill into the mini-battle full of Alpha Werewolves and Vamps. All the Werewolves had yellow fur for some reason and one of the Vamps had light blue skin.

"Holy crap! That's Syphon Vamp Marsly-Apkins!" yelled a Werewolf Warrior named Shavrez.

"That's a chick's name?" asked Renz-Furr.

The Syphon Vamp heard them and hissed loudly, ready to attack.

"You had to say something."

Marsly-Apkins flew toward Krazat and slashed him across the chest, infecting him with a darkness poison and taking away some of his health. Howndst returned the favor by shooting two arrows at her chest, only to realize they didn't kill her.

"What the hell?!" said Howndst.

"You guys go deal with the other Vamps while we take care of Marsly-Apkins!" shouted Harkst.

"Yes, sir!" said the others.

Renz-Furr and his Lycans ran towards the Vamps and began attacking them with full force. Twarzy took out his Fearsome DuaLight and stabbed one of them in the torso, knocking her to the ground. Then he just sat there and continued to stab her until he was satisfied that she was dead.

"I think she's dead now."

"When'd you realize that, after you saw one of her ribs fly out?" asked Renz-Furr.

Two of the yellow Alpha Werewolves got hit with some sort of dagger weapon a Vamp threw out of her sleeves. One of them was hit in the face and ended up succumbing to his wounds. The other one simply roared at the Vamp and lashed at her chest multiple times until she died. There were only a few more Vamps to worry about, along the Syphon Vamp Marsly-Apkins.

Harkst and Howndst were actually having a touch time with Syphon Vamp, as she moved too quickly and her power was so dark that someone would get intensely ill if they devoured her. She grabbed Howndst's face and sucked a large portion of his health and added it to her own, making her even stronger. Harkst tried lashing his claws at her, but she side-stepped him and sliced his back with her claws instead.

"This isn't working! One of us has to distract her!" said Howndst.

Harkst looked around the area, trying to find something that would make her turn around. Then he found it. Harkst picked up a giant log and tossed it Marsly-Apkins's head, giving her a massive concussion.

"Well…I guess that works."

The Syphon Vamp groggily stood back up, holding the back of her head that was bleeding heavily. She suddenly groaned when Howndst stabbed her in the back and slowly moved the blade in an upward vertical motion, practically slicing her whole body in half. It was at the time when her body fell that all the other Werewolves found out the Vamps were all dead.

"PHEW!! That was some intense fighting right there!" said Twarzy.

"Safiria took a very big chance sending all these Vamps and that Syphon Vamp to try and kill you guys all at once. What'd you do, kill one of her Vamp Handmaiden's or something?" asked Howndst.

"No, we're all part of the Were-King's 3rd Tactical Division." said one of them.

"So?"

"We're all highly-ranked lieutenants for the Were-King who are hired to assassinate Elder Vampires."

"Whoa, what's with the funky Werewolf breath?" said Renz-Furr.

One of the other lieutenants growled gutturally at Renz-Furr.

"Elder Vampires are known for having Osmophobia, and we have Ablutophobia."

"What?!"

"Vampires have a fear of odor and these Werewolves fear baths and cleanliness." said Howndst.

"Oh, I get it: The Were-King formed this division to gross out the Elder Vampires so you can kill them a lot easier!" said Twarzy.

"Basically. You'd be amazed how many zombies we eat to get our breath to smell like this."

"I can only imagine…" mumbled Renz-Furr.

"Well, now that we're all done here, what's next?" asked Krazat.

"We got separated from the 2nd Tactical Division a few miles that way." said the lieutenant.

"Fine, let's go rescue them!" said Harkst.

Renz-Furr groaned.

"Do we have to?"

"Don't talk like that! It's our duty to protect our Lycan--" said Harkst.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, Lycan brethren. Let's just go so we can get this over with."


	5. Good Night's Rest

Good Night's Rest

It was almost 2:45 in the morning, and all the Werewolves were exhausted. They have been running around Darkovia for over 12 hours, saving other Lycans and killing several other Vampires. In a way, they felt good about themselves, because over 1000 more Vampires had been slain, and over 59 clans of Werewolves were still breathing. A couple of the rescue operations didn't go as planned, but things could've gone ten times worse.

There were so many bodies lying on the soil that the Werewolves who were still awake were simply sitting around a campfire on top of the bodies. It wasn't really the smell that got to 'em; it was the insects buzzing around their faces. Krazat had hundreds of flies buzzing around and in his ears and face to the point where he almost couldn't see. He, Renz-Furr, Twarzy and Howndst were the ones who had to keep watch as all the other Lycans laid on the ground, sleeping and snoring.

"You know, I'm actually starting to like the smell of dead Werewolves and Vampires." said Renz-Furr.

"I though you were gonna say Harkst's feet, but okay." said Howndst.

"Speaking of which, you ever hear of that rumor that if you tap a Werewolf's foot while he's sleeping they'll just pee themselves?"

"I thought they would lash someone's face off?" asked Twarzy.

"If you guys are so curious, why don't you tap Blargazn's foot?" asked Howndst.

Twarzy walked up to the yellow Alpha Werewolf who was part of the 3rd division and simply tapped his foot, watching it twitch slightly.

"See man? Nothing happened. Just a bunch of bull--"

Blargazn grunted loudly and abruptly broke wind in front of their faces. Renz-Furr and Howndst started laughing hysterically while Twarzy simply held his nose.

"Man that stinks! What did this guy eat before he went to sleep?!"

"If they eat a bunch of zombies to get bad Werewolf breath, whatdaya think zombies are gonna make Werewolf farts smell like??" asked Howndst.

"I don't know why you're complaining; that back blast of his killed all the flies." said Krazat.

Everyone didn't say anything for a while and just sat there trying to figure out what was going on.

"You ever wonder why we stare at the moon? You know…just sit down and look at it?" asked Krazat, staring at the moon.

"How do you think we turn into Alpha Werewolves? All we gotta do is simply stare at it and we transform in a matter of seconds. It gives us power Krazat."

"If that's true, then why are we fighting this war?" asked Twarzy.

"What does staring at the moon have to do with this war?" asked Renz-Furr.

"We're all just searching for more power to fuel our desirable needs just to show that we're the supreme race. But the thing about us Lycans is that we already have our source of power: the Moon. So in a way, we've already won the war because we have the power we need."

"Whoa…that was deep."

"Yeah, I was kinda expecting that from Howndst." said Krazat.

Howndst suddenly got a horrible idea inside his mind. He remembered what the Vampires told him about a weapon that was capable of destroying even a dracopyre. Is it possible that everyone was fighting over this weapon and that all of Battleon wanted to get rid of Werewolves? Or perhaps there was a cache of weapons that could wipe out every single species in the world? Either way, the situation wasn't looking good.

"Guys, what if the Vampires found a weapon that can destroy the moon?" asked Howndst.

All the other Werewolves laughed out loud, wondering why Howndst would ask a question so foolish. Then they stopped and stared at Howndst when they realized he wasn't kidding.

"Oh my God, you're serious." said Twarzy.

"When I was held captive…one of the Vampire Lords hinted that there was some sort of weapon that could defeat a dracopyre in possibly one blow. …Maybe that's why this war just flared up out of nowhere."

"Even if the Moon is destroyed, we're still gonna be Werewolves; I don't see why they'd be so stupid into thinking destroying the Moon would kill us."

"What if it weakened us?"

"…"

"It's not like they're gonna find the weapon, and if they do, we're gonna destroy it before they're able to use it. Look at the Devourer; we stopped them before they caused a massive amount of chaos to the land." said Renz-Furr.

"Yeah! And look at the last war. Sure, we lost, but we wound up losing the least amount of Werewolves." added Krazat.

"I don't know. This is all starting to spiral out of control."

"Come on Howndst! It's not that bad."

"You're sitting on a pile of Vampire skulls!!"

Twarzy lifted up his foot to see he was sitting on a massive pile of Vampire skulls.

"Oh."

Twarzy yawned and stretched his arms.

"You guys gonna keep look out?" he asked.

"Yeah, we'll wake you up if we see a wind dragon or another clan of Vampires."

Twarzy stretched his body along the skulls and shut his eyes, slipping into unconsciousness. Renz-Furr, Krazat, and Howndst simply stared at the sky or into the campfire, making sure no more enemies snuck up on them.

**8:27 a.m.**

Howndst woke up with some gruffly figure kicking him in the kidneys really hard.

"Wake your ass up!" yelled Harkst.

Howndst groaned and looked around the campsite, noticing the fire had burned out and that all the other Lycans were on foot, traveling to a lair of ice dragons.

"Where we goin' boss? That ice dragon lair?" asked Howndst.

"That's right. Seems that the Were-King wants us to hunt some ice dragons for their hidden weapons. You should know that every ice dragon lair has a pack of frost weapons behind it."

"Right."

Howndst slowly got up and the two of them joined their Werewolf pack.

* * *

Harkst's clan of Werewolves arrived near a freezing lair on a plateau occupied with ice dragons. Most of them were tired and freezing their butts off, especially Renz-Furr. Twarzy saw him shaking and shivering like crazy with some of the furs on his tail frozen off. He laughed and asked,

"What's the matter Twarzy? Getting chilly?"

"S-Sh-Shut up!" he said, still shaking.

"If you think this is cold, you've never been hit by an ice dragon's frosty breath." said Howndst.

"How many do you think are in there?" asked Twarzy.

Harkst shrugged.

"Five, six."

"More like 20." said Howndst.

"Did anyone ask you?"

Again, Howndst felt like responding with a smart-ass comment, but the last they needed was the two of them fighting. Harkst sighed and took out his weapons.

"All right pups, let's do this!" he shouted.

All the Werewolves ran down into the lair, hoping they'd be able to slay some ice dragons and maybe even get some food and weapons.


	6. Chill Down the Spine

Chill Down the Spine

Harkst and his crew were inside of the ice dragon lair, walking down a path that would hopefully lead them somewhere. All of them were still cold and they could see their breath in the air. Most of them still had snowflakes hanging off their fur, but none of them cared for it. They just wanted to find the stash of ice weapons before any of the ice dragons found them.

"Hey, how much further?" asked Renz-Furr.

Harkst growled. "I don't know. Let's just split up when we arrive at the next tunnel."

"Don't you think one of these tunnels could lead directly to a nesting ground full of ice dragons?" suggested Howndst.

"Why don't you try it?"

Harkst shoved Howndst into a tunnel on the left side of the cave, while Harkst and his team went down the right tunnel. A couple members of the 3rd Tactical Division decided to go along with Howndst and Krazat.

"Jackass."

"What's the deal with you and Harkst?" asked Blargazn.

"He's too damn stupid and stubborn to take suggestions from anyone else besides himself. Watch--he's gonna get the whole clan killed." said Howndst.

Nevertheless, Howndst and his men still walked down the tunnel will no objections. Even if they come into contact with a fleet of ice dragons, they would slay all of them and use their hides for breakfast. Howndst and his team slowly walked down the tunnel, breathing heavily while gazing at the various objects they found encased in ice blocks. Some of them looked liked Evil Tikis while others were some odd forms of golems or equipment that looked like it was from the future.

"What is all this stuff?" asked Krazat.

"C'mon Krazat! Don't tell me you didn't know that ice dragons are notorious for robbing people. They're like pirates…if pirates were dragons that is." said Blargazn.

He started to climb on top of an oddly colored rock that was light blue and navy. Howndst suddenly got wide-eyed when he realized that the "rock" he was walking on was actually the back of an ice dragon.

"Blargazn! Stop moving!" he yelled in a whispery voice.

"Why?"

Blargazn looked down and nearly shouted when he too noticed he was perched on top of an ice dragon. It wasn't a baby one either; it was a fully mature adult ice dragon, probably several hundred years old. The only good thing about the whole situation is that Blargazn was stepping on a _sleeping_ ice dragon.

"Let's not panic." said Krazat.

"Why? Because you're standing on an ice dragon or because we're surrounded by nearly 20 of them?" asked Princkl, an Alpha Werewolf with green metal pads.

Everyone looked around the cave and realized that Howndst was right: They stumbled upon a nesting ground full of ice dragons, all of which were sleeping like babies.

"Guys! I just found the stash of weapons in the back!" said Blargazn, pointing to the end of the tunnel.

All of the Lycans saw the giant stash of IceRazors, Thule Spears, Blizzard Wands, and even a couple of Chill Rippers hanging on the rocks. Many of those weapons could destroy thousands of fire dragons without the Werewolves even breaking a sweat. …It's a mystery as to why the dragons even had the weapons anyway, but the Lycans didn't care. They just needed the weapons back.

"Okay…if we can find a way to get around the dragons without waking them up, then we should be fine. All we have to do is try not to step on their noses or any part of their face." said Howndst.

"Just their face? They don't feel anything if I step on their back or stomachs or anything?" asked Princkl.

"The rest of their body is hard from all the ice. You could jump on their back over and over if you wanted to."

Blargazn started jumping up and down on the ice dragon's back.

"I didn't mean that literally!"

* * *

After traversing through all of the ice dragons, Howndst and his team arrived at the cache of ice weapons.

"Alright, just take whatever you can carry. We only need enough for the clan." said Howndst.

"Okay."

Howndst and all of the other Werewolves began to latch all of the weapons onto their backs and inside of their armor. They didn't wear much clothing so they couldn't carry much.

"Who's that ice dragon right there, with the yellow snout and wings?" asked Krazat.

Howndst turned around to see a dragon three times the size of a normal ice dragon. His name was Defermes the Ice Dragon, and he was known to steal from some of the richest people in all of Lore…just before he devoured them.

"That's Defermes the Ice Dragon." said Howndst.

"Defermes??? That dragon's gonna be pissed when he realizes we just stole his weapons!" said Princkl.

"We got all our equipment. Now let's move!"

"Right!" said Blargazn.

Just when the wolves were about to leave the tunnel, Blargazn accidentally farted next to an ice dragon's face. Blargazn tried to fan the smell away, but it was too late. The ice dragon sprang to life and sneezed on Blargazn, looking down at him and the other Werewolves.

"Oops." muttered Blargazn.

"What the…INTRUDERS! INTRUDERS! EVERYBODY WAKE UP!!" yelled the ice dragon.

All of the ice dragons began to wake up and were ready to attack the Werewolves. Howndst quickly took out his Lycan Slasher and stabbed an ice dragon in the heart several times over, killing it instantly. All of the ice dragons began to attack the Werewolves and they decided to fight back. Princkl took out his Fearsome DuaLight and flicked it at an ice dragon's face, mutilating it greatly. Krazat hopped off Princkl's back and cut off the dragon's head.

Meanwhile, Howndst and Blargazn were working side by side to take out Defermes and his little squad of baby ice dragons. Blargazn jumped on top of a baby ice dragon and lashed at its face multiple times over until it succumbed to its wounds and died. Then he grabbed a Lycan Slasher and ran underneath another baby ice dragon, gutting it until all of the intestines dropped to the floor. He shouted out loud however, when Defermes blasted his icy breath on him, freezing his feet to the ground.

Krazat was working with the other Alpha Werewolves of the 3rd Division, slashing dragons in the chest and jumping on their backs. Princkl was almost bitten by an ice dragon, but he grabbed its mouth and made sure that its jaw stayed open. Just when the dragon was about to chomp on his head, Princkl burped in its face, causing it to sneeze and groan in detest. Vampires weren't the only ones who hated the 3rd Tactical Division's bad breath. While the dragon was stunned, Princkl picked up another Fearsome DuaLight and threw it in the dragon's neck.

"We just stole a whole cache of weapons! Can't we use them against the dragons?!" yelled Krazat.

"Ice weapons on Ice dragons? Think about it Krazat does that make any sense?" asked Howndst.

"No--OW!!"

Krazat was bit in the ribs. He stabbed the dragon in the mouth as retaliation. Blargazn was still stuck inside the ice and was lashing it with his DuaLight and his claws. But right when he was about to get free, Defermes spotted him and was about to kill him.

"You will pay for murdering my children!" he shouted.

"Little help here Howndst?!"

When Defermes blew two breaths of ice at Blargazn, Howndst shot two arrows from his LycanBow at the streams of air. Both of them made contact, freezing the arrows and causing the breaths to go in a different direction. Blargazn shouted when he tore his feet out of the ice and yelled ferociously, attacking Defermes. The dragon continued to jump and hop backwards, flapping his wings in the air and blasting his icy breath at Blargazn. Unfortunately for Defermes, Howndst leaped off the wall and jumped on top of Defermes, stabbing him in the spine. Defermes roared and shook Howndst off his back, only to get stabbed in the heart by Blargazn.

Pretty soon, all the ice dragons were dead, except for Defermes. He was breathing heavily while holding his chest, walking his way out of the cave. Defermes started to flap his wings, but his weak and battered body wasn't able to support the wings. He fell to his stomach, tired and exhausted. All the Werewolves walked over to the mortally wounded dragon and started licking their lips.

"So…white meat or dark?" asked Krazat.

* * *

Outside, everyone was feasting on the ice dragons that they cut apart into little chunks. Renz-Furr was having trouble though, because he could never bite down into the flesh.

"Damnit, why can't I bite down into this?!"

"You gotta crack the ice casing first. All these dragons' hides are covered in hard ice." said Twarzy.

Twarzy took the chuck of flesh that Renz-Furr was biting down on and cracked it against the wall, exposing the soft flesh that was edible.

"See?"

"Oh…I knew that."


	7. Wings of a Werepyre, part 1

Wings of a Werepyre, part 1

It was morning once again in the forests of Darkovia, but as always, the sun never breached any part of the hectic woods. Only a couple of handful of bodies were cleaned up and burned into ash, but the forest was still occupied with hundreds if not thousands of Vampire and Lycan bodies. It looked like the chaos wasn't going to end for months…maybe even years. Despite everything, a couple of creatures were still at peace. A little BURP was scurrying across the dirt and leaves on the ground, squeaking every couple of seconds. The big ugly rat pest sniffed the air a couple of times and ran on top of a few Vampire bodies, standing on its hind legs and jolting its head left and right, trying to catch any whiff of wheat or grain. But sadly, there was no sign of grain anywhere. The rat dejectedly squeaked and hopped off the bodies, running across the blood stained soil. The rat looked up into a tree and started sniffing again, acquiring a strong whiff of acorns. It wasn't wheat or grain, but BURPs had no problem eating nuts either.

The BURP latched its claws onto the tree bark and began to scurry up the branches. Just as the BURP was about to disappear into the leaves, it squealed as it was crushed by hundreds of pounds of force applied to its back. A Werepyre slammed his claws into the tree bark and grabbed the BURP. Well actually, the Werepyre just dug his claws into the tree bark, slamming into the BURP with the palm of his hand. The Werepyre slowly slid his hand down the tree bark, leaving his huge claw marks on the tree, holding the little BURP by its tail with his thumb and pointer finger. The Werepyre looked like all sorts of Werepyres do; wearing browns shorts with a belt and an orange short-sleeved shirt. They had giant wings that were over a foot long in diameter and big feet that could crush a human skull if they stepped down hard enough. If that wasn't enough, they have two giant yellow fangs hanging out their mouth and dark red eyes with tiny pupils. For some reason, Werepyres have oddly colored noses; this one in particular had a dark blue one.

The Werepyre continued to stare at the flailing BURP, slowly moving his pupils left and right. He examined the creature as though he never seen it before, but the Werepyre has killed and devoured thousands of BURPs during his lifetime.

"Yeah. I know. I know, I know, it's…it's not fair right? You think what's about to happen to you…just isn't fair."

The Werepyre sounded like he was crazy, but his voice was calm and soft. There was just this kind of dialect in his voice that made it sound foreign and menacing. Something you wouldn't want to hear in a dark alley or in Darkovia at night.

"See, you're just a little rat lookin' for some wheat or type of grain to eat. You don't harm anyone, you don't do anything wrong. Yet everyone hates you and thinks you're a menace to society. All you want to do is go up that tree and chew on a couple of acorns or berries…and you can't even do that. Right now, you're asking yourself, 'Why me? I just want some food to eat, a little burrow to stay in. Maybe even raise a family of rats, watch them grow up and become fat healthy BURPs. Why do you have to eat me?! It's not fair!' Well I'll tell you something you little rat: It IS fair. You see…you, me, dragons, zombies, worms, we're all just pure…simplicity. We ask ourselves the concepts of fairness and we always think that nothing in our lives is fair at all. But…that's a false avowal. Is it fair that my family was brutally slaughtered when I was a child? Is it fair that a couple years later Wolfwing turned me into a Werepyre? Is it fair that I was dragged into this war without any questions asked, forced to watch my fellow Werepyres die in front of my eyes. Yes. All of which I've said is fair. Sure…my family is dead and I'm a Werepyre, but Wolfwing managed to convince me otherwise. Although my family is body-wise deceased, their souls are still with me. And even though I'm cursed to forever live my life as this horrible abomination, I now realize that I have more power with me…and a new family of Werepyres."

The Werepyre sighed heavily and blinked a couple of times, waiting a little while before he started talking again.

"Eating you is without a doubt fair. Since I'm hungry right now, you will satisfy my needs, but unfortunately, you will die. You might find this to be irrational, but it actually isn't. After I consume your body and dispose of the waste through my anus, the worms will feast on the remains. Chances are a felonious falcon will eat that worm and then a poisonous sneak will eat the bird. Some monster will eat that sneak and so on and so forth. Somewhere along the line, it'll end with a powerful dragon consuming your soul. Technically, I'm helping you; I'm transforming you from a wimpy rat into a dominant dragon that can fly across the lands doing what it wants to do. And so…I say farewell little BURP. So long."

The Werepyre opened his mouth and slipped the little BURP into his mouth, letting its tail wag outside of his mouth. He usually waited until the tail stopped wagging before he ate the BURP, but in this case, it didn't matter. The Werepyre slurped up the BURP's tail like a wet noodle, munching on the rat's bones and organs, savoring the flavor of rat blood on his tongue. Then he swallowed and began to walk deeper into the forest.

"Well, well, well! Look what we found guys!" asked a mysterious voice.

The Werepyre growled and turned around to see five vampire slayers in dark red clothing and two Drakel captains. It seemed out of place for a half-dragon, half-human creature like the Drakel to pair up with vampire slayers, but the Werepyre had a feeling that they were probably mercenaries in the current situation.

"I was wondering when Edward would send his band of cronies to slay some Werepyres."

"He's goes by 'E' now, you know that." said the vampire slayer.

"Hey, boss! Ain't this that Werepyre named Byric? Someone placed a 784 gold bounty for his body!" said a Drakel Captain.

"Did they now…?" said the vampire slayer leader.

Byric started sniffing the air loudly and walked towards the group of vampire slayers, getting this odd pungent smell in his nostrils.

"Yes…I believe one of you individuals is a Werewolf…" Byric implied.

Byric walked up to a vampire slayer and deeply sniffed him, his wet blue nose flaring in the vampire slayer's face.

"Yes, you guys have a traitor. It's this man right here…he stinks of lycanthropy." said Byric, smiling devilishly.

"If anything stinks Byric, it's you Werepyres and your bad breath!"

All the vampire slayers and Drakel Captains started laughing and snickering at the vampire slayer's slandering comment, which made Byric growl under his throat.

"Fair enough. You can't deny that your soul consists of a Lycan spirit, and I can't deny the fact that my breath has a…somewhat displeasing odor to it."

"Well since you keep talking about the concept of being fair, I guess it wouldn't be fair if all seven of us were to fight you all at one time. So I'll make you a deal: Give us all the gold in your pockets and we'll leave you alone."

Byric scoffed. "How about the seven of you forget you saw me and just walk away? One of me is equivalent to nine of you Drakel creatures…and twenty humans. I strongly urge you not to fight me or try and rob me. Trust me…it will not end well for any of you. Just because you vampire slayers have your enormous swords and guns with you, doesn't mean you're capable of subduing me."

"Hmph! Why would a Drakel Captain such as myself succumb to your demands?"

"Because you want to live." Byric responded.

"All right, now you're pissing me off! Give us your goddamn money right now!" yelled a cocky vampire slayer, unsheathing his sword and putting it at Byric's throat.

"…You need to lower that sword from my trachea right now. If you don't, every single one of you is going to suffer a terrible fate."

"Oh, please! You think just cause you're a big, bad Werepyre that you can intimidate us and--"

Byric kicked the vampire slayer in the stomach and knocked the sword out of his hands by lashing them into the air with his claws. Then he lashed his claws across the vampire slayer's face, leaving four bloody giant scars. As the sword began to descend to Byric, he jumped behind the vampire slayer and grabbed the sword with his right hand. Byric didn't even need to turn around to kill the slayer; he just tossed the sword backwards and impaled the vampire slayer in the back of the head, splattering blood on the dirt and tree bark. The slayer slowly took a step forward and collapsed to the ground.

"You killed Michael!" yelled the leader vampire slayer.

Byric started scratching his chin.

"Damn…you're right. I didn't even give your friend a chance, did I? That wasn't very fair at all now…was it?"

Byric turned around so he wasn't looking at any of the vampire slayers or Drakel Captains anymore. Some of the assailants were puzzled by Byric's suddenly action and didn't know what to do.

"I don't get it; why haven't you guys attacked me yet??" asked Byric.

"HUH??!"

"True warriors never got anywhere by accomplishing their goals with cheap tactics and dirty tricks. Everything was made to be fair in this world. So…since I managed to blindside your little friend, I suppose there's no harm in letting you guys do the same."

At first, the vampire slayers didn't know what to do, but one of the Drakel Captains decided to act first. He leaped high in the air and was about to bludgeon Byric in the head with his spiked club, but at the last second, Byric turned around and grabbed the reptile by the neck. Then he jammed his right arm through the captain's chest…literally. Byric's arm burst through the captain's chest, crushing all of his ribs and severing his veins and arteries. The Drakel Captain was coughing up green blood with wide-eyes, shaking like crazy. Byric chuckled evilly and bit off the reptile's head, chewing it like he did with the little BURP. He tossed the body aside and spat out a bone, gazing at the five remaining assailants.

"Now it's five against one. Once again, I strongly urge you to walk away now, because if anyone else attacks me, NONE of you are going home alive." advised Byric.

"Never! Harselt! Garvin! Go get him!" instructed the leader.

Two more vampire slayers stepped in front of Byric, holstering their massive guns and swords. Both of them looked like they were a couple of young teenagers, yet they were motivated enough to take on Byric by themselves like it was nothing.

"You want to attack first, or should I Garvin?" asked Harselt.

"How about we both attack him? Doesn't that seem 'fair' to you?"

"No, but I like the sound of it!"

Harselt and Garvin ran towards Byric, giving out a loud ear-piercing battle cry. They were about to attack Byric with full force, using all their strength to try and kill him. When they got close enough, Byric ducked under Garvin's sword and kicked him in the face, simultaneously tripping Harselt with his tail. Both of them shook their heads and grabbed their swords off the ground, ready to attack Byric again. This time, Byric grabbed Harselt by the throat and began to strangle him, leading to Harselt to drop his sword and gun.

"Let him go you monster!!" yelled Garvin.

Garvin took out his gun and fired a fireball at Byric. He quickly ducked and threw Harselt's body to the ground, stomping on his chest with his left foot, crushing his ribs and chest. Harselt was dead. Byric blindsided Garvin when he jumped in the air and kicked Garvin into a tree, shattering in into several branches. Byric slowly walked up to the wounded Garvin and slashed his throat with his own claws. Garvin started coughing and whimpering at the pain, glaring at Byric as to signal him to try and lend him medical aid. But Byric just smirked and turned his back on him, facing the last three assailants. Byric noticed the Drakel Captain take a step back and break a twig with his foot, realizing the lizard was trying to escape.

"No, no, no." said Byric shaking his head.

"I gave all of you the opportunity to run away from me three times now and you just spat in my face. All you had to do was turn around…forget you ever saw me. Now all of you are going to die." he growled.

"That's what you think!"

All three assailants gave one last battle cry as they rushed to the Werepyre with full force, ignoring all of his protests to run away. Besides, even if they did run away, Byric would just hunt them down until they were dead, so the only option they had was to fight. Then again, they could've just run away before, but it was too late for that now. The leader of the vampire slayers started waving his sword at Byric like crazy, trying to hit him at any cost. Byric simply jumped in the air or side-stepped every swing to avoid getting hit. Then at the last second, he waved his elbow at the leader when he swung his sword, parrying the attack and stunning him. Byric grunted when he felt a sharp pain in his right hip; the other vampire slayer caught him off guard and jammed his sword in his side.

"I got him! I got him!!!" he yelled.

Byric growled gutturally and slowly took the sword out of his side, holding it like it was nothing.

"You really think that even fazed me? All you did was give me a gnat sized scratch."

"…Uh-oh."

Byric tossed the sword right back at the vampire slayer, stabbing him through the spine and impaling his heart. The leader suddenly came to and both the Drakel Captain and vampire slayer started to fight Byric at the same time. After the vampire slayer took a few swipes, he grabbed the slayer's sword and knocked his body into the reptile. Both of them shook their heads and started to fight with Byric again. He ducked under the captain's club and jumped over the vampire's sword, kicking him in the face. Then he grabbed the captain's arm and threw his whole body above him, slamming him into a moldy log. The slayer gave one last attempt at killing Byric again, shooting at him with his large gun. Byric hopped up and down and rolled on the ground in order to dodge the massive fireballs shooting in his direction. However, at the very last second, the captain desperately attempted to club the Werepyre in the head. Byric parried his attack and grabbed the captain by his neck with his whole arm, turning him around so he was holding the reptile hostage. The vampire slayer inadvertently shot the Drakel Captain many times in the chest with the fireballs, almost killing him.

Byric grabbed the Drakel Captain's club and chucked it at the vampire slayer's head, killing him instantly. Byric dropped the Drakel Captain and stared at his charred body, sniffing it deeply.

"Well I can't let a perfectly good Drakel go to waste so…"

Byric bent over to his body and took a giant chomp out of his body, chewing it slowly and savoring the satisfying flavor. He swallowed hard and took another bite out of the reptile, eating a small portion of his brain. Byric continued to take bite after bite out of the lizard until his taste buds were satisfied and he belched out loud. Byric turned around and started collecting the bodies of the other vampire slayers, realizing that most of his Werepyre friends would want a little snack too. Then Byric stretched his wings and flew away into the night sky, disappearing without a trace.

**To be continued…**


	8. Wings of a Werepyre, part 2

Wings of a Werepyre, part 2

Three werepyres with green noses and purple shirts were patrolling the skies of Darkovia, fluttering their giant wings throughout the clouds. It was now a little past noon, and the werepyres had been flying for the past three hours. One of them sighed heavily and started to fly back down to the ground.

"Hey, Grardon! Where ya goin'?" asked one of the werepyres.

The two remaining werepyres followed Grardon to the soil and began to walk on the blood stained dirt.

"I thought we were supposed to patrol the skies until Wolfwing met up with us and told us to relocate?" asked one of Grardon's friends.

"We've been flying for the last three hours Pakvotin! Wolfwing is not coming!"

"So what do you suggest we do until then? Last time I checked, it was a lot safer to fly in the skies than walking on the ground where unsuspecting Lycans could ambush us."

"I don't care--"

The other werepyre began to sniff the air deeply and growled under his throat.

"What is it Ezkof?" asked Pakvotin.

"There's a werewolf nearby…pretty stinky one too."

Pakvotin and Grardon growled deeply and started to walk around the forest while sniffing the air.

"Everyone split up. This werewolf might be a spy for the Werewolf King. We gotta kill him before he gets away."

And so the three werepyres began to walk in three different directions: Ezkof went left, Pakvotin went right, and Grardon turned around and walked backwards. Grardon walked up to a tree and stood right up against the bark.

"Where are you hiding you stinkin' Lycan?" he asked himself.

"Here."

Before Grardon could even scream, the camouflaged werewolf hiding behind him grabbed Grardon by both of his cheeks and violently jerked his whole head sideways. His neck cracked in three places and there was a good chance some of his carotid arteries were twisted beyond recognition. The werewolf dropped Grardon's body and began to walk to his other two werepyre enemies. Pakvotin was slicing his way through dead tree branches and leaves with his bare claw, thinking that the Lycan was hiding behind a pile of leaves or inside of a bush. Pakvotin took a step forward and shouted when he was instantly turned upside-down and lifted into the air, dangling by his right foot.

"Damnit! Ezkof! Get your butt over here and help--"

Before Pakvotin could finish, the werewolf jumped in front of him and covered his mouth, making his shout out muffled protests. The werewolf took out his Lycan Slasher and slit his throat, ignoring all of the blood splattering in his face. Then he stabbed the werepyre in the torso and slowly ran it down his stomach, letting his entrails and stomach acid fall to the ground. The werewolf let go of Pakvotin's mouth, noticing that he stopped shouting and was dead.

"Grardon? Pakvotin?" asked Ezkof.

Ezkof looked left and right to see if his fellow werepyre friends would answer him. But to his surprise, all he heard was the sound of the wind blowing the dead leaves on the ground and a werewolf howl from a far distance. Ezkof sniffed the air again and got yet another whiff of the werewolf assailant. Ezkof growled and took a step forward, yelping when he fell down a hole that was covered with leaves. Unfortunately for Ezkof, he fell onto a pile of pointy arrows which were impaled throughout his body. Ezkof groaned loudly and gasped when he saw a dark figure with wings above him.

"Grardon? Grardon! A little help here?" pleaded Ezkof.

"Here you go."

Instead of lending Ezkof a hand, "Grardon" handed Ezkof an orb full of the components from a Liquid Fire weapon. It turns out that Grardon had his wings chopped off by the werewolf and he used the wings to fool Ezkof into thinking he was Grardon.

"WHAT THE FU--"

The orb exploded and spread oil and fire all over Ezkof, setting him on fire and burning him alive. As Ezkof screamed horribly in the pit, the werewolf simply walked away, smiling to himself.

* * *

Normally, Harkst and his warriors would feel soggy vampire and werewolf blood seeping between their toes. Right now, they were feeling the sogginess of their own slobber. Harkst thought that if he barbecued several pounds of meat and fanned the smoke into the air, it'd attract countless numbers of werepyres, where they would be lead to slaughter. Unfortunately, the smell attracted all sorts of monsters EXCEPT werepyres and the smell was slowly making the werewolves hungry. Even Howndst was trying to contain the saliva that was dripping out of his mouth.

"Can't I just have one--"

"NO ONE EATS THE MEAT!!" yelled Harkst.

"Don't worry about the tempting smell of the meat Shavrez! Worry about finding a clan of werepyres!" said Howndst.

"You can't admit that you don't want to get a taste of that rich and savory meat inside your mouth right now, with all those beefy taste buds making contact with your tongue and the juices erupting down your esophagus as you swallowed."

Howndst held his stomach as it growled loudly at him, coercing him to eat the meat.

"Don't tempt me Shavrez…"

"How much longer do we have to wait until the werepyres get here? We've been doing this for three hours and we've attracted all sorts of monsters here!" asked Takelt, another alpha werewolf from the 3rd division.

"In due time Takelt…in due time."

The werewolves continued to hide surreptitiously behind a field of trees and bushes, waiting for any winged wolf-bat creatures to come flapping their way to the campfire. It wasn't until nearly 10 minutes later before six werepyres, all wearing yellow shirts with blue fur, floated down to the fire and started to sniff the delicious meat.

"Finally. Now we can ambush these hybrids by surprise." whispered Howndst.

The werepyres crowded over the fire and began to hungrily tear away at the meat with their teeth and stuff it down their throats. Some of them even lashed at each other and started arguing over which slab of meat they wanted to eat.

"Wait for it…" whispered Harkst.

The next thing that happened seemed impossible. A black aura appeared for a millisecond, and a couple of seconds later, one of the werepyres split in half, right down the middle like a sandwich.

"HUH?!" yelled one werepyre.

"What was that?"

Another werepyre groaned and grunted four times before he slowly fell backwards with four large gashes on his face.

"AMBUSH!!" yelled the leader werepyre.

Harkst growled gutturally and yelled, "Attack!!" after he realized that someone must've spoiled their secret hiding spot. The werepyres turned around and began to fight with the werewolves, lashing their claws at Harkst. Harkst took out his Fearsome DuaLight and blocked the werepyre's attacks. Then he snarled loudly and bit down on the werepyre's neck, ripping out the carotid arteries. Howndst and Twarzy began to shoot their LycanBows at another werepyre, but it was moving too fast for them to hit it and blocked almost all of the attacks. The werepyre zoomed into Howndst and Twarzy and kicked them into a tree and started to repeatedly punch them in the face. The werepyre abruptly stopped and grunted meekly…just before his head slid off his shoulders. Howndst and Twarzy were more shocked than scared that someone instantly decapitated a werepyre like that.

"…What just happened?" asked Twarzy.

"I don't--"

The werepyre that Blargazn was fighting groaned and slowly fell in front of his feet when he looked down to see that someone impaled him with a staff. The last werepyre feared that whatever was ambushing them was about to kill him next. But before he could fly away, the intruder tossed four shiny ninja stars cased with the power of light. The werepyre grunted four timed when he was hit in the face, chest and stomach, falling to the ground like a fly swatted from the sky.

"…We got ourselves a ninja." said Howndst.

"You don't know that for sure! It could just be a--"

Harkst coughed up blood when someone stabbed him with Kazan and Kesshou Katanas. Harkst slowly pulled the swords out of his back and angrily threw them on the ground.

"COME ON OUT AND FIGHT ME LIKE A MAN!!!"

Harkst yelped when he was yanked upside-down by his left foot, forced to look at his troops while dangling from a rope.

"If you pups don't find and kill that ninja, the last thing you will see in your lives will be my teeth!"

The threat was enough to scare the rest of the werewolves into looking for the ninja assailant, while the 3rd division got out a knife and cut the rope that was holding Harkst, causing him to fall on his back.

"How are we going to catch this ninja? There's no that we can travel as fast as he does." said Twarzy.

Howndst scratched the back of his head and began to think for a moment. The only possible way to stop the ninja was to fool him at his own game.

"I got an idea…"

* * *

Howndst stood behind a thin tree branch and pulled it back so far that if Howndst let go of it, it'd whack whoever was in front of it in the face. Twarzy was standing in front of the tree, posing as live bait for the ninja.

"So how is this gonna work again?"

"When the ninja zooms by with his spin tactics maneuver, I'll let go of the branch and whack the ninja while he's in his ball form. This way, the ninja will trip over himself and fall to the ground, where we'll be able to capture him."

"The ninja is traveling at the speed of light! How are you gonna know when he--"

Howndst released the branch and whacked the ninja right in the face, causing him to fall on his back and groan loudly.

"Oh, that's how. Harkst!! We caught the ninja!" yelled Twarzy.

Harkst and the other werewolves ran up to Howndst and Twarzy and looked down upon the ninja, ready to kill him. But before Harkst could rip out his throat with his teeth, Howndst began to notice something very odd about the ninja…mainly his big hairy feet with pointy toenails.

"Stop!" shouted Howndst.

"Why?"

"Look at his feet. Don't you think they're a little…oversized and hairy to be a human's foot?"

"So he grows a lot of hair on his feet."

"Why's the hair red Harkst?"

Harkst examined the ninja's feet more closely and suddenly began to realize that they looked more primeval than human. Harkst ripped off the ninja's helmet and was surprised to see a werewolf warrior with dark red fur, breathing heavily.

"Huh. Looks like one of our werewolf brethren managed to transform a ninja."

The ninja stood up and shook his head, growling at Harkst.

"Who the hell are you guys?" he asked.

"How's about you tell me why you stabbed me in the back before I rip your face off?!" threatened Harkst.

"I'd like to see you try…"

Harkst lifted his left arm and was about to lash at the ninja-werewolf's face, only to be stopped by Howndst.

"We're just a simple clan of werewolves for the Were-King's army. Except for those four yellow alpha werewolves; they're part of the 3rd division, which was created to strike a blow to the elder vampires. So what's your name again?" asked Howndst.

"My name's Graknat. I used to be a ninja before you Lycans decided to bite me in the face and couple years ago and since then, I've been working as a simple bounty hunter." said the red ninja werewolf.

"Mind explaining why you just tried to kill our leader?" asked Krazat.

Graknat shrugged. "When I joined a werewolf clan, all of them betrayed me and I became a fugitive. I've been on my own since then. I thought every werewolf I saw was trying to kill me, but I guess I'm wrong."

"Why would you disgrace your werewolf ruler by not wearing your Lycan armor like we all do? And why do you smell like garlic?!" growled Harkst.

"The only thing vampires hate more than werewolves with foul breath is werewolves with garlic breath. I eat garlic constantly. And I'm sorry if you Lycans get testy just because I still wear my Shinobi Shozoku armor."

"Yeah. Shouldn't you be happy that we have a stealthy ally now Harkst?" asked Renz-Furr.

"Hmph! If you guys want to pick up all the straggling werewolves you can find, then go ahead. Just don't come crying to me if he stabs you all in the back!" said Harkst.

"I'm not gonna stab you guys in the back--"

"You already did!!!"

Harkst and Graknat growled so gutturally at each other that everyone could see the fur on their head slowly stand up.

"…As a fellow alpha werewolf such as you Harkst, I suggest that we get over the new pup and start hunting for more werepyres. If they're raising an army, we have to find out about it before they decides to launch an attack against the Were-King. Are we clear Harkst?!" asked Blargazn.

"…Okay. I'll deal with you…for now." muttered Harkst.

"Good. Now let's go."

* * *

Harkst and his clan were sitting atop of a small castle, overlooking a large group of werepyres having a clandestine meeting. All of them had white fur and were wearing dark blue pants. Twenty of them had on red shirts and the other ten were wearing brown shirts. None of them were actually inside the castle and were simply glancing through a window. Graknat was surprised that none of the werepyres managed to smell his breath.

"I suggest that we position more werepyres here and instruct this clan to go here instead." said a werepyre.

"Are you crazy Uzlaht?! You'd be sending all of those werepyres to their deaths!"

"Not if we put some plasma dragons in this quadrant. After the werewolves deal with these dragons, they'll be too weak to fight us anymore and we'll crush them!"

"No, no, no, no. We need some undead warriors here. They can rise up from the ground and attacks those dogs from behind before they even notice."

All the werepyres were crowding over a map of Darkovia they had nailed to the castle wall. Many of them were making marks with their pens and pencils and markers, trying to demonstrate where they would put their troops.

"Who are these guys?" asked Shavrez.

"They're the 76th Tactical squadron for Wolfwing's siege battles. By the looks of it, they must be planning something very big." said Graknat.

"Well let's go get 'em!"

"Not yet!" retorted Harkst, stopping Shavrez from jumping into the castle.

The leader of the werepyres, whose name was Wylite-Drakkson, walked up to the map with a thick black marker in his hand.

"Here's what we're gonna do: The Were-King has a militia of nearly 5,000 werewolves advancing on this position here, in The Razmik Canyon," he started, circling a large rocky structure on the map.

"We're gonna send in twice as many werepyres and engage in combat, slaughtering every single Lycan we see. If the werewolves have a little plan up their hairy sleeves, we'll capture three dozen plasma dragons and send them in for support. If that doesn't work…"

"Then what Wylite-Drakkson?" asked a werepyre.

Wylite sighed. "I have a…'friend' in the Drakel army with a 'secret weapon' that fires large missiles buried in silver."

"How does it work?"

"When the missile launches, it'll explode in mid-air and billions and billions of ninja stars and spiked silver balls will rain down upon those dog creatures. Of course, we'll be clear out of the way when it happens, so the only casualties will be the werewolves. Anyone who survives, we'll have for dinner." said Wylite, smiling devilishly.

"Oh, that's good!"

"I like that plan too!"

All of the werepyres began to chuckle evilly and chant Wolfwing's name. Then they all laughed again and walked out of the room, entering the center of the castle.

"Ten thousand werepyres!! Those Lycans will be slaughtered if that missile launches!"

"Don't be so uncertain Twarzy! Our Lycans can survive through any ambush those filthy hybrids throw at us!" said Harkst.

"Regardless, we have to go tell the Were-King as soon as possible. He has to know about this attack!" said Howndst.

The werewolf warriors jumped off the castle and began to run on the ground as fast as they could, determined to warn the Were-King as soon as possible. But Harkst and the 3rd division were still looking through the window.

"Harkst! What're you doing?!" shouted Krazat.

"I think we need to take out the 76th squadron. At least it'll be one less set of brains to help out Wolfwing. You guys go on and warn the Were-King."

"If you say so. Have fun!" said Shavrez.

* * *

After running away from the castle for twenty minutes, Howndst suddenly stopped when an odd odor penetrated his nostrils. He sniffed the air twice and slowly unsheathed his Lycan Slasher.

"What's wrong Howndst?" asked Krazat.

Howndst started panting and the hairs on his neck began to rise. He growled menacingly in his throat.

"I think there's a werepyre nearby…a really evil one too."

"Yeah…I smell it too." said Twarzy, sniffing the air several times.

"Hello pups."

Everyone gasped and their eyes widened when they saw a large werepyre with a blue nose and orange shirt perched in a tree. His red eyes were beaming down right on the werewolf warriors, almost stunning them. It was Byric.

"It's been a long time, _Howndst._ Did you miss me?"

**To be continued...**


	9. Wings of a Werepyre, part 3

Wings of a Werepyre, part 3

Howndst and his fellow Lycans were standing still as they looked at the menacing werepyre perch on the tree branch.

"So which one of you wants to challenge me first?" asked Byric.

"Twarzy, take the troops back to the Were-King. I'll handle this." said Howndst.

"But--"

"Just go Twarzy! Howndst and I will take care of this!" said Graknat.

Howndst looked at Graknat with a puzzled face. He didn't know why the ninja werewolf wanted to stay with him to take on Byric, but then again, he didn't care. Howndst just shrugged and continued to stare at Byric, who jumped out the tree. All the other werewolves retreated.

"How's life treatin' you Howndst? Kill any werepyres lately?" asked Byric.

"Just stop talking and let's fight; this is all gonna lead to you hating me just because I'm a werewolf." said Howndst.

"I suppose that's correct. I truly don't understand why someone as smart as you would waste your valuable talent working for those dogs. What could be wrong with becoming a werepyre like me? Hell, I'm half werewolf anyways. I just serve for a different leader."

"Didn't that new 'leader' you speak of slaughter your family when you were five?" asked Graknat.

"…Yes…Wolfwing butchered my whole family like they were insignificant animals put on this earth just to cause turmoil…but he managed to make the whole situation seem…fair."

"What does fair have to do with anything when you're working for the creature that murdered your whole family?!!" asked Howndst.

"Weren't your parents killed when werewolf warriors invaded your village and killed everybody? And weren't you bitten by a werewolf during the raid?"

"Don't change the subject! That's not the point!"

"I think it is…" said Byric, smiling.

"See, the difference between you and me is that you won't admit that it's Wolfwing's fault that you're like this! Sure, I hated the werewolves at first--"

"_At first. _Those are the key words. But now, you've accepted it, just like I have and you work for the creatures that have caused you a great deal of pain. Even worse, you've become friends with them all. Admit it…you have werewolves that you might as well consider to be your brother. Let me guess, one of them was that warrior who just took off. Twarzy, was it?"

"Enough talking! Let's fight werepyre!" said Graknat.

"If you insist."

Graknat and Howndst charged towards Byric, while he simply smiled and showed his teeth.

* * *

Meanwhile, Harkst and the 3rd Division were currently scaling down the inside of the castle wall, latching their claws into the cracks into the walls as though they were wall hooks. All six alpha werewolves jumped off the wall and landed down on the ground, cracking a few of the stone tiles. Their first objective was to take out the high-ranked sergeant werepyres like Uzlaht and Kriz, and then later take out the leader of the 76th squadron, Wylite-Drakkson.

"How do you want to do this Daxxil?" asked Harkst.

"Until we see Wylite-Drakkson, we play this as quietly as possible. First off, you and Blargazn will go that way." responded Daxxil.

"Got it." said Blargazn.

"All right. Now Princkl and I will go this way, and Tarwak and Jriv can explore the main atrium. Everyone understands?" asked Daxxil.

Cleary by the way Daxxil was acting, he was the one in charge of the 3rd Tactical Division, or at least the clan he was commanding. He wasn't that much older than Harkst, but he was an alpha werewolf longer than him, so Harkst treated him with respect, unlike most of his subordinates.

"Yes sir." replied the burly werewolves.

"Okay, let's go!"

The three groups split off into three separate directions: Harkst and Blargazn went left, Princkl and Daxxil went right, and Tarwak and Jriv went straight ahead.

* * *

Harkst and Blargazn were stealthily creeping through the dim hallway inside the castle when they stopped as they approached a door on the right side of the hallway. It was just a large wooden brown door with a gold knob and a picture of a werepyre sitting on a toilet. Obviously, after Harkst sniffed the air a few times, the two of them had stopped at a latrine…which was currently occupied. Lucky for the two werewolves, they probably had a good 10 to 30 minutes before the werepyre left, so they decided to plan to sabotage him when he got out.

"I got an idea. When he gets out--"

Before Blargazn could finish, he heard what sounded like a flush and a couple of footsteps. The werepyre had finished doing his business and was about to walk outside and see them. If that wasn't bad enough, another werepyre was walking down the hallway ahead of them.

"Screw this."

The minute the werepyre opened the door, Harkst dug his claws into the werepyre's neck until his claws penetrated through the meat. He then grunted loudly as he ripped the whole thing apart, exposing all of his carotid arteries and veins. Blood spilled all over the floor and the werepyre instantly collapsed.

"HEY!!" yelled the werepyre walking down the hallway.

Blargazn quickly reacted and chucked a ninja star he borrowed from Graknat at the werepyre. Before the werepyre could close his mouth, the ninja star flew into his mouth and impaled him in the back of his mouth. If one of them looked behind the werepyre, they'd see a bloody ninja star sticking out the back of his head.

"Nice shot. Let's keep going." complemented Harkst.

* * *

Princkl and Daxxil were waltzing their way through another hallway that lead to a weapons chamber and training area inside the castle. Several swords were there, made of titanium and steel and encased with the element of fire and light to help the werepyres fight the vampires and Lycans. The walls were made of red bricks and the ceiling was several feet high, unlike the main chamber the group was just in. The floor felt slippery for some odd reason and Princkl and Daxxil were sure that the air was humid and reeked of werepyres' feet.

Of course, they couldn't help but notice the werepyres training with their knives and swords, enhancing their strength by punching a bag filled with seeds, like it was a homemade punching bag. The werepyres in this room were all wearing purple shirts and blue pants, and their noses were red. They looked nothing like the 78th squadron and Princkl and Daxxil began to realize that they took a wrong turn. These werepyres were just trainees preparing for the battle to come, which would explain why they were all so sweaty and why the room smelled like a gym bag. One of the werepyres stopped punching the punching bag and glanced to his left, seeing the yellow malodorous alpha werewolves.

"What the hell?!"

"Final training lesson: If you trainees can defeat us, maybe you'll actually be able to survive the upcoming battle." said Princkl.

"Get 'em!" yelled a rookie werepyre.

All of the werepyres grabbed combat knives and swords and rushed towards the yellow werewolves, ready to attack. Both Princkl and Daxxil were surprised to see that the werepyres managed to get a hold of some fire elemental Vartai Blades and even a couple of Fire Lord's Axes, although none of them grabbed the axes yet. One of the werepyres quickly flew towards Princkl while two other ones wielding dual knives cornered Daxxil, waiting for the right time to attack.

"Wylite-Drakkson will pay greatly for your deaths…" growled the trainee walking towards Princkl.

Princkl could see the drool seeping out the trainee's mouth, the anger in his dark red eyes. He could even see his dark black fur standing up on his shoulders. The moonlight reflected off the trainee's Vartai Blade and Princkl expected the adolescent werepyre to make his move soon. The werepyre let out a vicious snarl and lifted his arm in the air, prepared to attack Princkl. The yellow werewolf simply lashed his claws at the werepyre's armpit, nearing tearing out a large chuck of meat. He groaned loudly and was about to drop his sword, but Princkl grabbed it and skewered him in the side of his head, knocking his body to the ground.

Daxxil also wasn't having any trouble with his werepyres either. One of them attacked too soon and he bit down on the sword, jerking his head sideways so the blade snapped in half. The werepyre's friend took the time to stab Daxxil in the throat, but Daxxil countered the werepyre with the fire elemental knife and made him stab his own friend in the neck, killing him. Daxxil head butted the werepyre and kicked him in the torso, followed by repeatedly clawing him on the face until it was bloody. The young werepyre kicked him in the torso twice and bit him on the chest, but Daxxil ignored his wounds and tackled the werepyre with ease. He then proceeded to ravage the werepyre's body with his choppers.

"Um…maybe we should call for backup…" recommended a werepyre.

With only two left (three if you count the werepyre Daxxil was tearing away with his teeth) Princkl decided to deal with them before they warned Wylite-Drakkson. He ran to both of them on all fours and the werepyres charged towards him, flapping their wings like crazy. Princkl jumped up into the air and grabbed a werepyre with his arms. He then lifted him high into the air and gave him a hug…a bear hug.

"UHN!! Let me go!" protested the werepyre.

"What's wrong? I just want to give you a hug!!" chuckled Princkl.

In reality, he was crushing the werepyre's body like a snake or a sneak when it wraps itself around its prey. The werepyre slowly began to gasp and scream when he could hear the bones in his body pop like bubble wrapper. Even though the werepyre Princkl was holding was lashing his claws at his face and kicking him and thrashing around like crazy, he couldn't get free of the alpha werewolf's strong grip. Eventually, the werepyre's spine snapped in half with an ear popping snap, which made even Princkl himself twitch at the disturbing noise.

"I'll bet that hurt." he muttered, dropping the dead werepyre.

Princkl roared when the last remaining werepyre blasted him with a fiery beam from the Fire Lord's Axe, leaving a huge black scar on his chest. He growled gutturally and slowly walked over to the werepyre. He gasped and grabbed a Fire Throwing Knife and threw it at Princkl in the face, but he simply snorted the knife out of his nose and continued to walk towards the werepyre. Getting over the fact that he wasn't going to kill Princkl, he decided to fly away, only to get dragged back down when he clutched the werepyre's foot. The werepyre continued to flap his wings in order to flee from the yellow werewolf, but Princkl only dragged him back down to the floor. He then grabbed his lower jaw with left hand and his upper jaw with his right and began to stretch it open, hearing some of his joints pop open. After some time, Princkl heard a giant crack and realized that he just permanently opened up the werepyre's mouth, killing him in the process. Princkl glanced to his left and saw that Daxxil was finished gnawing away at the werepyre's corpse and has blood all over his mouth.

"Well, this room's clear. Where to next?"

* * *

Tarwak and Jriv were actually having the better of luck compared to the other two groups of alpha werewolves. They already took care of eight white werepyres who were members of the 78th division. What was even better is that none of them had even been detected yet. As of now, they had 20 more (or less, assuming the other werewolves killed some more) to go before all of the werepyres were dead. They weren't traveling in a hallway, but a massive corridor lined with grey stone blocks on the walls. It must've been the atrium, judging by the size of it. There were several rooms that lead to hundreds of different places throughout the castle, hopefully to a bunch of sleeping werepyres. Not too many sounds were heard, so everyone had to be in a different quadrant or they were outside patrolling the skies and fighting more of their enemy.

"Which door should we try first?" asked Jriv.

"You take that one upstairs and I'll focus on some of the chambers down here."

"Okay."

Before they could finish talking, two werepyres appeared from the window high up in the castle near the ceiling, flapping their wings to the ground below. Tarwak quickly identified one of the werepyres as Uzlaht, the werepyre who was with Wylite-Drakkson earlier. The werepyre next to him was a young colonel named Jex-Var, who was wearing a red T-shirt like Uzlaht. The two yellow werewolves hid behind a large container storing food supplies and waited for the werepyres to start walking. They needed to ambush them at the right time before they alerted anybody.

"Is Wolfwing already aware of the plan? He's okay with that, right?" asked Jex-Var.

"Of course he is. This is our moment to take over a critical position those Lycans are storming on. If we successfully take over Razmik Canyon, we'll be able to set up a new base, and figure out more strategies at getting back at those meat eaters."

"What else did Wolfwing say?"

"He's sending one of his elite generals to lead the army against the Lycans. I think he goes by the name of Irrovs."

"Irrovs huh? I've heard many rumors about that werepyre…"

"What, that he slaughtered over 4,000 Diretooths?"

Tarwak and Jriv were a tad bit worried now. It took the whole Division to kill just a few Diretooths, and everyone received multiple wounds and scars because of it. The Diretooths were just as bad, if not worse, than the werepyres, and yet this guy Irrovs single-handedly killed off 4,000 of them!

"Wait a second…"

Jex-Var got on all fours and pressed his nostrils against the cold tiled-floor, sniffing it loudly as he walked around. Then he groaned and covered his nose, appalled when he got the whiff of Jriv's stinky footprint.

"Yep, I knew it! We got ourselves some intruding werewolves!" said Jex-Var.

Realizing that they had been spotted, Jriv and Tarwak revealed themselves and took out their Fearsome DuaLights, growling at the werepyres.

"So, you think Wolfwing will reward us if we deliver these werewolves' heads?" asked Uzlaht.

Tarwak laughed. "Try us."

Uzlaht charged for Tarwak and Jex-Var charged for Jriv. Jex-Var started off by biting down on Jriv's neck. Lucky for Jriv, his neck was very buff and muscular, so the werepyre's fangs only bit through the skin and punctured the meat a little. Jriv responded by grabbing his massive fangs and yanking his body to the ground. He then opened his mouth and stomped on the inside of Jex-Var's mouth, crushing his jaw. Jex-Var howled in pain and punched Jriv away, holding his cracked jaw.

Uzlaht and Tarwak were also having a brutal battle; Tarwak stabbed Uzlaht in the chest twice already, yet he still wasn't dead. Obviously, the sergeants were a lot more trained than the normal werepyre scouts. Uzlaht started clawing at Tarwak and biting at him, but Tarwak countered every attack with his sword. Tarwak jump-kicked Uzlaht and tripped him to the ground, ready to stab him in the face. Uzlaht quickly rolled out of the way and Tarwak managed to get his sword stuck in the tiles. Uzlaht finally found a way to take out Tarwak, so he charged towards him with his mouth opened wide, prepared to bite his head off. Uzlaht tackled Tarwak to the floor and the two of them were staring down at each other face to face. Tarwak could feel the slimy drool drip down onto his face and was holding Uzlaht off by holding onto his arms. Uzlaht punched Tarwak three times in the head and Tarwak returned the favor by head butting him, cracking one of his teeth.

At the last second, Tarwak was aware of something very important: He stinks. That was the whole point of the 3rd Tactical Division in the first place, to gross out their enemies and weaken them. Tarwak smiled devilishly and thought up of a plan. In a desperate (and somewhat cheap shot move) Tarwak exhaled loudly in Uzlaht's face.

"UGH!! Lycan breath!" said Uzlaht in revulsion.

Uzlaht got off of Tarwak and started coughing loudly and holding his nose. Tarwak jumped on top of the sergeant werepyre and bit down on the back of his neck, gradually ripping out arteries and veins until Uzlaht bled to death.

"You alright Jriv?" asked Tarwak.

He turned around to see that Jex-Var was missing over half his head, and his jaw had been ripped off. Jriv most likely severed half of his head with the Fearsome DuaLight and later took off his jaw.

"Yeah, I'm good."

At least, that's what they thought. Up ahead, the remaining members of the 78th Division were flying straight towards them. Perhaps Wylite-Drakkson heard all the commotion and sent all of his sergeants to scout out the castle. It was their sorry luck that they managed to find them.

"We're gonna need some backup…" muttered Jriv.

* * *

Howndst was on the ground, covered in his own blood, which was seeping between his teeth. The ongoing battle with Byric wasn't going well. In fact, he was losing…horribly. Graknat was either unconscious or dead; Byric countered one of his attacks and threw his body against a thick tree, impaling him with a branch. Byric himself was barely damaged and scarred. Howndst managed to bite him and few times and cut his arm with his Lycan Slasher, but that was about it. From there on out, Byric was in control.

"Get up." demanded Byric.

He kicked Howndst in the face and watched as his body instantly fell backwards onto his back, with blood flinging into the air.

"Get up Howndst. I thought you'd be a lot harder than this."

Byric kicked Howndst in the stomach and stomped on it, causing Howndst to cough up more blood.

"I thought…you go by the rules of being…fair?" moaned Howndst.

"Oh this? This is fair. If I wanted to, I could've eradicated you before you even started this battle. I just…wanted to see if you were actually tough enough to beat me. So far…I'm doubtful."

Howndst turned around and began to slide across the ground on his torso, trying to obtain his LycanBow which had been thrown far away from the battle.

"I wonder how your father would feel if he saw you like this…cowering away from your enemies." taunted Byric.

"Shut…up."

"What about your brother? I hear he supposed got turned into vampire not too long ago. How would he feel if he saw you in this state?"

"I SAID SHUT UP!!"

Byric smiled. This was usually the breaking point with werewolf warriors. If they stare at a full moon, or feel an intense amount of adrenaline or anger coursing through their veins, they'd get more powerful than ever. They'd turn into an aggressive alpha werewolf and unleash their destruction upon their enemies. Howndst growled loudly and roared, standing up on his feet. Then he started hyperventilating as his whole body began to grow twice, if not three times bigger than it usually is. Everyone thinks it's painful when you transform into an alpha werewolf, but that was just a stereotype. The real pain was getting bit by a werewolf and transforming from human to Lycan. But since he was already a werewolf, he had nothing to worry about. Nothing really happened anyway, except the werewolf would grow into a fully mature alpha werewolf.

"This is the Howndst that I wanted to see!" said Byric with excitement.

Howndst turned around and revealed his new form: A giant green alpha werewolf with dangerous red eyes and yellow teeth coated with saliva. Howndst was just as tall and powerful as his clan leader, Harkst. He looked down at both of his claws and made a fist, smiling devilishly at Byric. He only turned into an alpha werewolf four, maybe five times since he had been bitten by a werewolf, so this whole experience was still a little new to him. All he knew is that he had power…and he intended to use.

"You ready pup?" asked Byric.

"Bring it on, bitch." he said, with a deep harsh voice.

The two furry creatures got on all fours and ran towards each other, panting like crazy.

Then they leaped…

**To be continued…**


	10. Wings of a Werepyre, part 4

Wings of a Werepyre, part 4

"Where the hell is Harkst and the others?!" shouted Jriv, fighting off a bulky werepyre.

"They said they'd be here in…"

Tarwak and Jriv turned around to see four burly yellow alpha werewolves (plus a blue one, Harkst) storm into the room on all fours, ready to get into a fight. They were shocked to see that so many werepyres were all located in the same room all at the same time, but what really baffled them was the fact that they hadn't killed the werewolves yet.

"Jriv!" shouted Daxxil.

A werepyre sergeant tried to sabotage him from behind, but Daxxil jump-kicked the white assailant in the face, throwing his body against the wall. Daxxil then proceeded to jump on the sergeant's head and crush his skull with his bare feet.

"Harkst you come with me and help out Jriv and Tarwak! Princkl and Blargazn go on the second floor and try to flank them!"

"Yes sir!" replied the alpha werewolves.

Daxxil was so determined to rescue his grunts that he actually shoved Jriv out the way just so that he could grab a werepyre by the teeth and start ravaging his body. The werepyre screamed constantly as he tried to avoid his throat from being removed, but he was futile. The yellow werewolf ripped out the werepyre's carotid arteries and Adam's apple, leaving him to bleed to death on the floor. Meanwhile, Harkst was also handing a severe beat down to the white werepyres. He first started out by grabbing a werepyre by his foot and spinning him around by his tail. Just as he was about to chuck him at the wall, the werepyre kicked Harkst in the face, causing them both to fall down. The werepyre hurled his body towards Harkst, acting like a missile, and punch him with full force in the face. Harkst was launched through a stone column and several large pieces of the ceiling fell off, splattering a few werepyres into nothing but blood and bones. The werepyre that knocked Harkst through the column was also killed. Harkst countered one of the werepyre's biting attacks and grabbed his two yellow fangs. Then he twisted them so violently that the werepyre's whole body was flipped upside-down. The werepyre landed on his head and was gazing upon Harkst's feet, which was when he stomped on the creature's jaw and broke it.

"Where's Wylite-Drakkson?! We have to kill him before he calls up anymore reinforcements!" shouted Princkl.

"He's gotta be somewhere close by! Drakkson's losing more of his commanders by the minute so he should be revealing his hairy hide soon!" responded Daxxil.

"I thought I spotted him leading this whole assault high in the air? Wasn't he near the ceil--"

Jriv abruptly stopped talking and his right eye started to twitch. He dropped his Fearsome DuaLight and blood began to fall out of his mouth.

"Jriv?" asked Daxxil.

Jriv's whole chest soon exploded, spraying blood all over the floor and some of the deceased werepyres. A large odd looking blunt sword just burst through Jriv's ribs and heart, causing the outburst.

"Jriv!!"

Someone crept up from behind and impaled him with a pointy Fearsome DuaLight. Jriv could only scream when the assailant lifted the sword (and his body) upwards so it pointed to the ceiling. Jriv slowly slid down the sword as though he had just fallen on a spike. Eventually, he groaned and made a death rattle before he stopped struggling and shut his eyes. Jriv was dead…and his killer was Wylite-Drakkson.

"Up there! I found him!" shouted Harkst.

Daxxil roared loudly and scurried up a wall with his bare claws, jumping up to the level where Wylite-Drakkson was located. Daxxil never liked witnessing comrades he knew personally die in such a fashion. Even though Jriv wasn't part of his clan (the remaining member, Takelt, split off to join a different set of Lycans) he still hated to see these fully grown, mature werewolves die like that. Its one thing to die in combat and it's another to die as a coward, but dying because of a sneak attack such as this was unacceptable in Daxxil's book. Right now, all he wanted to do was inflict pain to Wylite-Drakkson's body.

"Lieutenant Wylite-Drakkson of Wolfwing's 76th Tactical Division." said Daxxil.

"And you must be Daxxil of the Were-King's 3rd Tactical Division. I'm not surprised the Were-King sent his stinkbugs out to get me." said Drakkson.

"We already know about the battle Wylite. Maybe you should suggest to that hybrid leader of yours to forfeit."

Wylite laughed heartily. "Why the hell would I say that?!"

"I won't scalp you if you do. You know that Lycans are true to their words when it comes to combat, so don't think I have any sort of problem cutting off the top rim of your skull right now, especially since you just murdered one of my comrades."

Wylite scoffed and got into a fighter's stance. "Like you could."

"…You know this won't end well for you right?"

* * *

Back in the forest of Darkovia, Howndst and Byric were engaged with fierce combat. The two creatures of opposite sub-races were viciously biting and snarling at each other, waiting for the other opponent to attack. Byric was actually having his hands full now that Howndst was in his burly alpha werewolf form.

"Why'd it take you till now to transform into your true form Lycan? Were you fearful of what you may become, that you might go on a bloodthirsty rampage and slaughter your werewolf brethren?"

Howndst snorted loudly and growled gutturally at Byric.

"Less talking, more fighting!" he yelled.

Byric chuckled to himself. "As you wish."

Byric and Howndst charged towards each other once again, but this time, luck was on Howndst's side. He tackled Byric like a football player and he went down like a sack of dead orcs. Howndst bit down on Byric's neck, causing him to shout out in pain and bleed from the wounds. Byric countered this move by head butting Howndst and punching him in the mouth. He then grabbed Howndst's arm and jerked it to his right, snapping it out of its socket again. Howndst howled in pain and kicked Byric away, clutching his broken arm.

"You broke my arm…" whined Howndst.

Byric smiled as Howndst continued to whine loudly. But his smile slowly flipped in the opposite direction when Howndst started laughing and he slammed his arm against a tree. Howndst snarled loudly again when he snapped his arm back into place, just like when he was in the vampire castle.

"That's better!" chuckled Howndst.

"Don't get so cocky werewolf. I'm just getting started." muttered Byric.

Byric hopped into the air and started to flap his wings so briskly that it created a strong gust of wind that literally blew Howndst off of his feet. He was thrown backwards into a tree, where a tiny, but blunt branch impaled him through the back. Howndst gritted his teeth and steadily removed it from his skin, grateful it didn't puncture any arteries. But just as he was done, Byric planted his feet onto Howndst's face with full force, launching him down a steep hill. Howndst followed the tumbling furry mutt and found him on his back, lying next to a rock. The werepyre tried to crush Howndst with his feet, but he quickly rolled out the way to avoid getting his ribs crushed. Howndst tripped Byric and almost snatched off his giant wings, but he bit him on his paw and Howndst flinched away. That was when he started lashing and punching Howndst in the face like a maniac, ripping off a part of his skin. Since Howndst was so much stronger now, he easily countered one of the punches and bit Byric right in the face with his massive jaw. Actually…strike that; he bit him on the _eye_ and didn't let go. It wasn't that Howndst was losing the fight and was trying to make a cheap shot at killing Byric, but he was so mad and blood drunk that he wanted to maim Byric as much as possible. And what better way to do that than taking away his enemy's sight? Byric was screaming, howling in pain as Howndst slowly lowered his jaw, crushing it more and more by the seconds that passed. If Byric hadn't lashed his claw at Howndst's side, his eye would've popped like a tiny water balloon.

Howndst finally let go and held his sides, which were nearly torn open. Meanwhile, Byric was covering his eye with his hand, not caring that blood was pouring out of it. But suddenly, Byric let go of his eye and started laughing in a semi-psychotic state.

"An eye for an eye Howndst." he laughed.

"What?"

"That…that was very sly of you Howndst. I never knew Lycans stooped to that level. It wasn't very…fair of you to do that now, was it?"

Howndst scoffed. "In war, fair has no value. You either kill or be killed; it's that simple."

"IT HAS TO BE FAIR!!" laughed Byric, maniacally.

"We'll…we'll continue this fight later…when things are fair enough for me to continue."

"You coward! You're retreating, aren't you?!" roared Howndst.

"No, no…I'm just pausing the game until the rules can be balanced out. How can I fight you with only one perfect eye? After you have lost your 'eye' then we shall engage in combat again. But for now…I'll let you bask in your glory."

Byric laughed again and stretched out his wings. Then he jumped into the air and flew away, disappearing into the sky. Howndst simply veered his head at the moon and howled loudly. He had fought Byric and survived…why wouldn't he bask in his glory?

* * *

Daxxil had just punched Wylite-Drakkson in the face, hurling his body down a set of stairs that led to the bottom floor of the castle. He quickly got back up to defend himself against Daxxil's attacks, but many of them were unsuccessful. It seemed impossible for the werepyre to defend himself from Daxxil's attacks, no matter what he did. Perhaps if he hadn't killed Jriv in front of Daxxil, he wouldn't be so pissed off.

"Pathetic! I don't even have a weapon in my hand and I'm the one kicking your ass!!" Daxxil taunted.

Wylite-Drakkson was insulted by the comment and he chucked the Fearsome DuaLight at the yellow alpha werewolf, only to witness him catching it in his teeth. With no other option left, Wylite was forced to fight with his own two hands and feet, and his teeth. Wylite-Drakkson flew towards Daxxil and formed his hands to become fists, which he was about to slam right into Daxxil's face. Daxxil ducked his attack and grabbed him by his right foot. Then he slammed his whole body on the floor before he brought it across himself and slammed the body on the ground again. He was bashing Wylite-Drakkson on the ground repeatedly like he was a giant club…a giant club that felt pain, that is. After about 10 swings, Wylite was chucked through another column which crumbled into tiny blocks that were the size of a gnat. Wylite slowly got up from the floor and turned around to face his enemy again. Even though Wylite was almost fatally damaged, he still wouldn't cower in fear and run away from his enemies, despite the fact he was going to die.

"If you give up now Wylite, I'll promise not to kill you painfully."

Wylite-Drakkson coughed up a lot of blood very violently and inhaled sharply, holding his wounds.

"Never!" he said, with pride still left in him.

Daxxil sighed exasperatedly and picked up the Fearsome DuaLight, walking over to the wounded white werepyre. Wylite was about to attack one final time, but Daxxil simply grabbed his wrist and jerked it sideways, snapping it out of socket. Wylite fell to his knees and screamed in pain, helpless at the werewolf. Daxxil took out the Fearsome DuaLight and ran it across Wylite-Drakkson's scalp, making sure the blade traveled around his whole head. Then he dug his claws into his skin and ripped the werepyre's scalp clean off like paper. Daxxil kicked Wylite to the ground, exposing his fleshy pink and gray brain.

"I told you we're true to our word Wylite." muttered Daxxil.

Daxxil glanced around the area and saw that all of the werepyres were dead, and the other alpha werewolves were still breathing.

"All right men! It looks like we're done here. Let's get back to the Were-King and talk more about this battle."

"But boss…what about Jriv?" asked Blargazn.

Daxxil looked up to the higher ground level to see his fallen Lycan subordinate lying on the floor. There was no way Daxxil could just leave Jriv to be eaten by the other werepyres.

"Tarwak! Harkst! Get his body so we can give him a proper funeral." commanded Daxxil.

"Got it." said Tarwak.

The two alpha werewolves picked up Jriv's corpse and slowly began to walk him out of the werepyre castle, with Daxxil and the others following behind them.

* * *

"Howndst? Is that you?" asked Blargazn.

The 3rd division began to walk through the Darkovian forest to find Howndst and Graknat, who was now conscious and standing next to Howndst. Unfortunately, Howndst's power was only temporary and the second he transformed into his original being, all of his wounds began to seep in. His whole body was scarred by Byric, especially his side. If Byric clawed him an inch deeper, his kidney would've been torn out.

"Yeah…we're over here!" shouted Howndst weakly.

"What happened to Krazat and the others?"

Howndst winced as he stood back up on his feet, standing a little wobbly.

"They broke away to go warn the Were-King about the impending battle. We should go join them and go over the plan again."

"Right. I say we've had enough fun for one day."

Howndst, Graknat, and the alpha werewolves began to walk away in the opposite direction of the castle, retreating to go join the Were-King and his forces.


	11. Precursor

Precursor

**A/N: If anyone wants to know the Were-King's son's name, it's Thrasher.**

Currently, the Were-King and a squad of his elite lieutenants and even a few generals were holding a meeting deep inside of the Were-King's cave. All of the burly werewolves were ranting back and forth and growling at each other, trying to blurt out their ideas about the battle first. Meanwhile, the Were-King was unsuccessfully trying to calm the wolves down.

"I say we send out the warriors first!" yelled a commander.

"NO! We're gonna attack full force with the other alpha werewolves!!" yelled another.

The commander who just retorted the other was lashed in his face with the werewolf's mighty long claws. Both of them growled gutturally at one another and were prepared to rip each other's throats out. Right when one of them was going to bite the other, the Were-King slammed his fist down onto a desk and roared loudly at everyone, similar to what he did in the Battleon hotel. It was actually more comical than menacing; seeing mature Lycans cower in fear just because another werewolf bellowed an ear-piercing howl was somewhat…amusing.

"Let me make this very, very clear and simple: Anyone here who threatens to harm or even kill another Lycan in this den will have his or her head severed from his or her shoulders. DOES EVERYONE UNDERSTAND THAT?!!!?" snarled the Were-King.

"Yes sir! It won't happen again!" responded the alpha werewolves.

"Good. I know we're not as 'civil' as those bloodsucking freaks but that doesn't mean we can't compromise over something now does it? We don't need violence amongst ourselves! We're not cannibals and we're not the Diretooths so get your shit together so we can make this work out!!"

The Were-King took a huge breath and exhaled so he could calm himself down to a more suitable manner.

"Now…what were you trying to propose Al-Kringwol?"

Al-Kringwol was a standard brown alpha werewolf wearing standard Lycan armor. There wasn't anything noticeable about him that distinguished him from the others…except for the large red rash growing on the soles of his feet.

"Since we are going to have to go up against twice as many werepyres as us Lycans, perhaps we should bring in some backup in case things go awry."

"I've been thinking about that idea, yes. We could always 'persuade' some renegade faction to temporarily join us."

"You know that Bolman Clan located near Dragonstone Mountain? They've been training WereDragons for years under Galanoth's nose, making them stronger than even the dragons located here in Darkovia."

"So you want me to make a temporary alliance with the Bolmans in order to acquire these almighty WereDragons?" asked the Were-King.

"We might as well, since I overheard Harkst saying the werepyres are bringing a small fleet of plasma dragons. This evens the odds in our favor."

"Good. I need you and Daxxil to get right on it."

"Yes sir!" replied Al-Kringwol, running out of the den.

"Hey Were-King, don't we still have some WereDragons of our own in storage?"

"…I just remembered that!"

* * *

The Were-King and all of his generals were standing outside near the Lycan fortress, gazing at least eight fully mature WereDragons. All of them were snorting and growling in the pit of their throats, agitated at the werewolves. They had been trapped inside a cave for many years now, surviving on food they could find from the inside of it. Few WereDragons have even died because when they tried to get out, the cave collapsed and some of the dragons were crushed underneath the boulders.

"Why should a dragon such as myself help you canines with any of your needs?!" shouted the leader WereDragon, named Wexlof.

"Because Wexlof, we'll supply you with all the meat you and your dragons can eat for here till the ends of time."

Wexlof scoffed. "You Lycans will say anything to get a helping hand!"

The Were-King snapped at the furry dragon and left a scar on his nose with his claws, causing Wexlof to shout out in pain.

"We already have more dragons coming into battle with us, which means we don't need you at all. I'm only doing this for my army's insurance. Of course, if you don't agree to help us we'll be feasting on your intestines and your hide for dinner." said the Were-King, smiling devilishly.

He then licked his lips and laughed gutturally so he could scare the WereDragons into agreeing.

"Okay, okay. But if you canines don't provide us with the foods we want then _we'll _be the ones feasting on_ your _intestines."

"I doubt that."

* * *

Meanwhile, the werepyres were also making their strategy on the upcoming battle, hastily making final preparations. Since the 76th Division was completely eradicated, Wolfwing had to find a new set of advisors to help him in making plans. Right now, Wolfwing himself was standing outside talking to some of the werepyre sergeants that were going to go into battle while everybody else was getting armed.

"Wolfwing, I still don't exactly understand the attack pattern. Go over it again?" asked a werepyre named Quivilk.

Quivilk is a werepyre wearing a green shirt and pants. His fur color was brown and his nose was bright white. He was the Major Sergeant and commanded a large section of the army. All Major Sergeants are forced to rule a minimum of 100 werepyres during battle.

"Pay close attention Quivilk or I'm having your Major status revoked! You and all of the various Major Sergeants are the main battalion, the section of the army that attacks the Lycans first. You storm the Lycans until they decided to retreat." started Wolfwing.

"How do you know they will retreat?" asked another Major Sergeant.

"Trust me, they are going to retreat. One way or the other. Anyways, after that you need to send a few scouts to fly high into the atmosphere, preferably a group of werepyres with extraordinary vision and audible range."

"I can get that done. Orpatatz and his clan should get the job done."

"Are you sure about that Quivilk? These werepyres are going to spy on the Lycans to see if they're gonna try and plan a sneak attack on our forces."

"Trust me Wolfwing. I can depend on Orpatatz."

"Okay. As for the rest of you, focus on taking out the Were-King's lieutenants and generals first. If they lose enough of them, the Lycans will be forced to make their own orders."

"Don't you mean they'll scamper?" asked a crony werepyre.

"No I don't. Lucky for you, you get to slaughter as many canines as you want. The Were-King has trained them so much that they'd rather die in battle than retreat." said Wolfwing.

"I understand the plan of strategy Wolfwing, but what about casualties? Surely we can't get through this battle without losing key werepyre personnel?" asked Bjovak.

Bjovak was a grey werepyre wearing a blue shirt and pants. He was another Major Sergeant just like Quivilk. Although not too many werepyres hanged around him, mostly due to his schizophrenia…and his terrible foot odor. Actually, the only werepyre that even made decent conversations with him was Byric.

"You're right. Out of every three werepyres you see in this little group, one of those three will die. So I'd estimate that being at least 3300 werepyre deaths, but it's just a guess."

Some of the werepyres groaned and swore under their breath, upset and angered that their leader may be sending them to their deaths.

"What will you be doing Leader?"

"Negotiating."

A cocky werepyre scoffed. "Negotiating?"

"If I play this situation correctly, I may be able to make a temporary alliance with ogres, the Drakel, even a few humans. Before you ask, I say _temporarily _for a reason; the minute our new 'partners' have helped us extinguish the Lycan menace, we'll betray our partners and slowly begin to build our army until all of Lore is ours. So if anyone's putting their ass on the line, it's me."

"You mind explaining how you're doing that?"

"Remember the werepyre that flew into ogre territory just to release the contents in his bladder?"

"You mean Aronz?"

"Yes, him. All I can identify is his liver…I think the ogres ate the rest."

"What about the leader of our army, Irrovs? What's his play in all this?"

"He hasn't informed me yet, but I believe he's bringing in his own secret weapon."

* * *

Somewhere in the bowels of a werepyre castle was a room engulfed in absolute darkness. Nothing could be seen at all should any occupant enter with horrible eyesight. But the werepyre that was walking down a set of concrete stairs could see perfectly. His dark red eyes were so bright in the room that they literally were glowing in the dark. Anyone inside the room would probably soil themselves if they saw red eyes sluggishly moving towards them, but no one else was in the room. At least, that's what a human would think. In reality, a hyperactive werepyre wearing a dark green shirt and black pants was chained by his arms to the floor. He could only walk a few paces before the chains restricted him from progressing any further. Why the werepyre was chained in the basement was unclear, but Irrovs always did something for a reason. See, this werepyre that Irrovs had chained up had…problems. Many, many problems. There was no way to describe this werepyre except by saying his name.

"How have you been Tugis?"

"Oh, yes, yes! Master Irrovs is here! Irrovs is here to free Tugis from these restraints! Now Tugis can go play!"

His voice was eerie, like a gremlin with this cackling voice. It wasn't really deep, but the sound of it was simply baffling. Everytime Tugis spoke it seemed as though he would stutter a little bit or sounded like he was ranting about random nonsense. He frequently said the same statement in a different form several times over. And if that wasn't enough, he sometimes twitched his eyes and body, jerking it in an odd direction.

"What'd I say about playing Tugis? You only get to play if you've been a good boy. Have you been a good boy Tugis?" questioned Irrovs.

"Yes Master Irrovs, yes. Tugis has been good! Good werepyre for Irrovs! Tugis has been good! Can Tugis go free now?!"

"That depends Tugis. Are you going to 'play' with some of our werepyres again like you did a few days ago?"

Tugis then started to whine and whimper like an injured pup.

"Tugis wants to play…Tugis wants to play. Won't Masters Irrovs let Tugis play?"

"No."

Tugis started pouting loudly and tried to break the restraints that were attached to his arms, thrashing his body around like crazy.

"TUGIS WANTS TO PLAY!!"

"Tugis! TUGIS!!!"

Irrovs held the rampant beast by the shoulders and throat, trying his best to calm him down and keep him under control. Eventually, Tugis obeyed and began to settle down.

"Listen Tugis…in the next day or so you will be able to play with at least 5000 Lycans as much as you want to. You'll be able to play later OKAY? I'll let you play _later _OKAY?"

Tugis gasped loudly and started wagging his tail like crazy.

"Irrovs will let Tugis play?!!?"

"Yes. I promise you, you'll be able to play soon Tugis."

Irrovs gasped and grunted a little bit when Tugis gave Irrovs a massive bear hug that squeezed the breath out of him.

"Tugis loves Master Irrovs. Master Irrovs' warm fur reminds Tugis of Tugis' father."

"Uh…I love you too?" said Irrovs, uncomfortably.

Irrovs didn't really love Tugis in that sort of fashion, (in fact, he didn't love him at all) but Irrovs was the master of the dependent Tugis. Tugis was more of a pet to Irrovs as opposed to a son. He didn't even like Tugis that much, even though he took care of him.

"Hey, I got a present for you Tugis!" announced Irrovs.

"What?! What did you get for Tugis?"

Irrovs chuckled evilly and walked outside of the castle basement for a little while. Tugis waited with bated breath, grumbling to himself and wagging his tail so hard he thought he might tear it off. After waiting for nearly two minutes, Irrovs walked down the stairs dragging a near unconscious human behind him. It was a newly appointed Dracomancer, all dressed up in his armor too. He looked very young and was most likely a new recruit…perfect to Tugis' liking. He opened up his gaping mouth and started to drool large globs of saliva until it soaked in-between his toes.

"Can Tugis eat him? Oh please, please Master Irrovs! Let Tugis eat this creature! Tugis wants to tear the flesh off his bones!" pleaded Tugis.

Irrovs glanced at the whimpering Dracomancer and the slobbering Tugis and simply shoved the Dracomancer at Tugis' feet.

"Knock yourself out." muttered Irrovs.

Tugis laughed wildly and lunged himself forward, grasping the Dracomancer with his large fangs. He dragged him backwards to where he stood and Tugis snarled loudly before laughing again. Saliva was literally pouring out his mouth like a waterfall, dripping onto the Dracomancer's face. Tugis bite down on the Dracomancer and began to rip apart his body and swallow the meat off his bones like an animal, which was exactly what he was. He ignored the screams and cries for help and continued to devour the Dracomancer without stopping to even take a breath.

Indeed, something was very wrong with Tugis…

* * *

Near the border of Dragonspine Mountain were a battalion of War Dragons and Sand Dragons chatting amongst themselves. All of these dragons were part of the 96th Aerial Attack Dragon Squadron, a squad created for dragons to do fly-bys on enemies and enemy territory. This squad in particular had lost almost their whole squadron due to an ambush by Galanoth and his vicious dragonslayers. The dragons never stood a chance and only six of them managed to survive. Four were war dragons and the other two were sand dragons.

"What are we supposed to do now Rrylik?! Everyone's dead!" asked a war dragon named Boen.

"Yeah! Where was the backup that Jinsuz promised?!" demanded a sand dragon nicknamed Cheese-Back.

"I don't know! I don't know what happened to Jinsuz and I don't know where the other dragons are! All I know right now is that we need to stop fighting each other so we can figure this out!" said the leading war dragon, Pfuser.

Pfuser was actually a pretty forceful dragon than most people thought. He always seemed to act cowardly at first, but in reality, he could burn down titanium just by exhaling his breath onto it. When the war started, he was immediately given the position of a squadron leader and commanded a set of 11 dragons, five of which have died due to Galanoth. He also got the nickname "SourHide" because Pfuser suffers from a horrible disorder that makes him squirt acidic excrement through his anus. A normal person would think it was grotesque special ability, but SourHide welcomed it. It had actually got him out of trouble on numerous occasions.

"Perhaps we should go back to Battleon--"

"No. Last time I heard, a squad of earth dragons went there for recon and never came back."

"Then what the hell are we supposed to do? Just sit on our asses and wait for some help to show up?!" asked an irritated sand dragon named Yilkvu-Armonsobiy.

"Sounds like a pretty good idea to me…" mumbled Rrylik.

SourHide exhaled loudly, getting a little agitated by his feebleminded crew of dragons.

"The only thing we can do is fly to Dragonspine Mountain and go searching for Lord Cyrus. Maybe he and his Dracomancers can help us get through this war."

"Hey, yeah! They're always talking about saving dragons and as long as we don't seem too forceful, maybe he'll lend us a hand!" said Cheese-Back.

"That sounds like a superb idea! Let's do it!"

The 96th Aerial Attack Dragon Squadron flapped their wings cyclically and began to gain wind speed. Then they all took to the skies, flying away into the night.

* * *

Back at the vampire castle, some of Safiria's elder vampires were also making contingency plans for their rule of Darkovia. All of the Lycans were about to face off against the werepyres, so a good portion of them would be too preoccupied at the moment. Sure, it was only 5000 or so Lycans that would be gone, but many of these Lycans were alpha werewolves…and some of them were even generals for the Were-King. This would be the perfect time to take a strike at some of the minor clans that the Were-King rarely put into battle.

As of now, elder vampire Count Vork Claussim was making preparations for his teams of vampire lords and vamp assassins. Vork wore this gray coat with boots and pants instead of the normal brown coats most elder vampires wear. He wasn't exactly as tough as people took him for and always tried to find the weak point of his opponent. If he couldn't find it fast enough, chances are he'd take off and regroup with a clan of vampire warriors. No one knew too much about him, except he lost his children in a Lycan raid and has been ordering the deaths of thousands of Lycans since then. Before their deaths, Vork was decent and well-mannered and peaceful. Now he's a cold being with no heart or mercy for anyone or anything. He only cares about his vampires…and his wife, Stuset.

"So everyone agrees with the plan? Taking out the Were-King's miscellaneous clans should weaken their moral long enough for us to take him on with full force." concluded Vork.

"Sir, why are we attacking these inconsequential clans instead of aiming for the Were-King and his son's forces?" asked a vampire lord named Farken.

"If there's one thing I've learned, it's that you start from the bottom and work your way up. If we try to gang up on that slobber beast's elite forces now, we'll be slaughtered. I already made that mistake by sending Marsly-Apkins and her vamps to try and take out the 3rd Tactical Division."

"You mean those stinky yellow Lycans who never bathe or brush their teeth? I thought she took care of them."

"Apparently not, since we found her body practically cut in half. The point is we need to take out these little nuisances and wipe them clean off our watch list. At least this way, we'll be able to get some breathing room and by doing so, we'll be able to establish more clans within Darkovia."

"Gotcha. So which clan do we attack first?" asked Farken.

"You and your mob of 20 vampire warriors will storm the Bunyip Lake in the southern section of Darkovia. Take out any were-creature you find: Werewolves, were-hares, WereDragons, I don't care. If 'were' is in the name, kill it. Second, I want you, Ezcofx, to sabotage the supply shacks in the center of Darkovia, located not far from the werepyre castle."

"So I should expect some resistance from werepyres as well Count?"

"That's correct. In the meantime, I want the rest of you Vamps to go hunt for any Beta Werewolves you can find. If you can, interrogate some of them so they can lead you to valuable Lycan targets, such as the Zard Trainer Nils-Vex."

"Anything else?"

Vork chuckled. "Yeah. Try not to get yourselves killed!"

* * *

Elsewhere, another coalition was slowly forming in the midst of the chaos, ready to plan something very big. No one knew who they were or what was going on, but they all had the same purpose: world domination. But this wasn't a group of dragons, vampires, Drakel, or were-creatures. It was just a little of all of them. Outside next to a broken down barn house were dragon related and taur related creatures. There wasn't any real leader because just about everybody in this little group had their own little ranking.

"What's your status today?" asked a Dracovamp Lord.

"Rumors have been swirling about an upcoming battle between the werewolves and the werepyres." said an alpha dracowolf.

"Meaning…?"

"Meaning that they'll be preoccupied and some of the sub-races' fortified strongholds may be penetrable! Now would be the perfect time for us to take over more castles and fortresses so we can set up our HQ!"

"Can't we just stay here at the barn?" asked a dracowolf.

"We can't hold all of our clandestine meetings at a rusty old dank barn! We need to get a bigger army and more recruits, fast!"

"But there's not too many Dracowolves and Dracovamps left for us to recruit. Most of them were slain inside Nightbane's castle or have scattered themselves throughout the lands. Besides, we can't just continue finding random victims to bite in the neck so they'll turn into draco-hybrids like us."

"I beg to differ…" said a WereDragon.

Everyone veered their heads left and looked at a WereDragon with dark blue fur and sparkling wings. His name was Ferwodem the WereDragon.

"What is it Ferwodem?"

"Couple of friends of mine have been patrolling the skies and overheard Count Claussim talking with some of his subordinates. Tomorrow, when the Lycans and werepyres are fighting, Vork's subordinates are planning on assaulting various werewolf clans around Darkovia to gain more territory. I feel that this should be a perfect time for us to step in."

"How?" asked another dracovamp lord.

"I think I see what he means. See, once the two races engage in combat, only one of them will be victorious. Any of the survivors we find after the ensuing battle we can easily infect with our draconic blood. Is that what you're trying to get at Ferwodem?" stated a dracovamp with dark yellow skin.

Ferwodem chuckled. "That's what I'm proposing."

"So while the vampires and werewolves fight, we just sit back and watch the fireworks and then clean up the mess. That's pretty smart of you to think of Ferwodem! Even for a WereDragon!" said a dracowolf.

"What, you got a problem with WereDragons being smart?" growled Ferwodem.

"No! No, I was just saying…"

"But what of the Diretooths? What role shall they play in this mission?" question the dracovamp lord who started the conversation.

Everyone grumbled to themselves, saying rebuke remarks about the feral werewolves.

"Leave them in their cages. They don't need any part of this mission; they'll screw it up."

"Are you sure about that?" asked a grey alpha dracowolf.

"They won't stop eating! Anyone that even goes near those cages ends up inside their colons! Or do I need to remind you what happened to Tikic and Blostine?"

"Please don't bring that up again. I still gotta scrape the brain fragments off the walls."

* * *

Back over on the werepyres side, Wolfwing and Byric were sitting at the edge of a cliff with their feet dangling in the air. Both of them were staring at the large and radiant moon, listening to the crickets chirping and the wind rustling in the tree branches. And then they realized something…it was quiet. There weren't the distant sounds of dead animals getting killed or bombs exploding or swords clashing with each other. It was as though every faction in Darkovia was waiting until tomorrow for the battle to start, like it was going to be the biggest moment in history. Maybe it was; no battles have been officially declared so far. All the other deaths were simply self-defensive deaths that resulted because a sub-race of one creature had sent out a clan to kill a clan of a different sub-race of creatures. Perhaps this was the reason why they were sitting and staring at the planet full of craters…they might not get the chance again.

But Byric felt a little…uncomfortable. He and Wolfwing hadn't said or done anything besides sitting and staring. They wagged their tails every now and then, but nothing else. Byric had to break the silence somehow. Even if he had to make up some random story he didn't need to know. He puffed out his chest and then exhaled for a long time before he began to talk.

"I'm surprised I haven't killed you yet."

Not a good way to start a discussion.

"Why would you dare say that?"

"Because you turned me into this abomination. I can never have a normal life ever again without someone calling me a freak or a bat out of hell."

"I turned you into a werepyre. Suck it up and get over it. It's not like you can change back into a human permanently so criticizing me won't help you."

"You're also forgetting that you and your friends murdered my family."

"Weren't you the one who said that this whole thing, you turning into a werepyre, my 'children' killing your family, was fair?"

"Yeah, but I've been thinking for a while and I'm wondering if all the stuff you said is nothing but utter bullshit."

Wolfwing ignored Byric for a moment and turned away, changing the subject after staring at the moon for a little while longer.

"I see someone did some major damage to that eye there…"

Byric brushed his fingers across his red eye which was still throbbing and had Howndst's bite marks around it.

"Time heals all wounds. Don't change the subject; get back to my family."

Wolfwing shrugged. "What's there to say? Do you want me to fully describe how we killed them?"

"That would actually make me feel a lot better. Yes…tell me how they died…and why for that matter. Was it painful or did you do real swiftly with little pain?"

"My memory's a tad bit fuzzy…but I believe I still remember. Your father had asked me for help on several occasions, rob from some bandits, steal Drakel technology, kill a few Cyclops Chieftains, stuff like that. Eventually, the list began to get higher and higher and higher until one day…I got tired of it. I didn't even warn him about the debt to be paid back; I just got some of my colonels to tag along and we flew to your house. I didn't expect your whole family to be there, let alone find you hiding in the closet, but you were. I was only going to kill your father, but your mother grabbed a sword and your sister tried alerting some vampire slayers. One thing…just lead to another."

"Why didn't you kill me?"

"You were five years old. How the hell was I supposed to know you'd figure out that I killed your family? I thought you'd be too young to remember."

"I was hiding in the closet covering my ears and crying. And you just…butchered all of them. Like you didn't care about anyone besides yourself...like they were insignificant dogs."

"Shut up Byric. It's not like you haven't taken away families for your own personal gain. Besides, you should be lucky. My men knew you were hiding in the closet but we didn't do anything. You were too young to be killed."

"My sister turned ten two weeks before she died…"

"Like I said she was going to alert vampire slayers and I couldn't allow that, okay?" growled Wolfwing, gritting his teeth.

Byric could clearly see that Wolfwing was getting annoyed, upset even. He already noticed that the fur on the back of his neck was sticking up. Byric remembered when Irrovs told him about a werepyre who taunted Wolfwing so much that he cut out his intestines with his bare claws while he was sleeping. Byric decided to stop asking questions and turned away from Wolfwing to gaze at the moon. However, Byric still had one question left.

"Did they die painfully?"

Wolfwing smiled widely and chuckled evilly to himself, not looking at Byric.

"That's something you definitely do _not_ need to know."

* * *

The Were-King and all of his subordinates were outside in this abandoned town all sitting on long benches and standing near the houses, talking and chatting amongst one another. Some of them were training and using captured vampires as punching bags to see who could beat the vampire to death first. For some really odd reason, Harkst always seemed to be the first. Anyway, the reason why all the werewolves were gathering together was to go over the final battle plans once again and to have a meaty feast from all the animals they killed and cooked in the forest.

"Who wants dead Moglins?" asked Krazat, carrying a whole bundle of different colored deceased moglins in his hands.

Before he could even set them down on the table, the werewolf warriors ravenously snatched the little creatures away and started biting their heads off and drinking the blood, just before they popped the whole thing into their mouths.

"Damn! I didn't know you guys liked Moglins that much!"

On another end of the table, a band of red werewolves were placing down several dishes that had been fried to perfection. Howndst and Renz-Furr were sitting down eating some of these meats, but abruptly stopped when they saw this really mysterious looking sludgy meat. It was grey and covered in slime and it smelled horrible, even for Lycans.

"What is that?" asked Renz-Furr.

One of the furry red Lycan warriors scratched his head in confusion.

"I don't know."

Howndst looked at the mysterious gelatin like meat and picked up a piece that looked like a long sausage roll. Some goop was falling off it and hitting the table and it was almost slipping out of his hands. He sniffed the smelly meat ans simply shrugged before taking a huge bite out of it.

"Tastes fine to me." he said.

"But it smells like Harkst's feet! Where'd you find this anyways Sytrus?"

The red werewolf shrugged and simple stated, "The ground."

"Where on the ground Sytrus?"

"I think it was near a pile of Zards…"

"Don't knock it till you try it Renz-Furr. This is actually pretty tasty." advised Howndst, taking another bite.

"…You sure you aren't eating Frogzard droppings?"

Also at the end of the table, Graknat was chatting with two young werewolf warriors, advising them about the battle.

"Okay, so the first thing you need to do is go for the neck. One quick slice with your blade and they'll be dead before you even have time to count your toes. If that doesn't work, always go for the torso. Cut it real fast and cut it real deep."

"Hey, why does your breath reek of garlic?" asked the adolescent werewolf.

"Shut up! I'm trying to make a point here. Now…believe it or not, but your jaws are the best weapons. You bite down hard enough and you can crush one of their skulls in exactly 4.829 seconds. Allow me to demonstrate."

Graknat placed a skull into his mouth and began to bite down. Just like he said, around four or five seconds later, the skull shattered into nothing.

"Wow that is so cool!"

"So do you have any other pointers to give us?"

"Do not stop moving. You stand still for too long, someone somewhere will find you and kill you and/or a random arrow could smack you in the face. The only time you should be still is if you're reloading your LycanBow weapon or shooting people with your bow; that's it. Oh yeah, eat garlic."

"Why?"

"Cause garlic irritates vampires and messes with their senses. That's why I eat so much of it."

"We're fighting werepyres, not vampires. They probably are immune to the garlic disorder."

Graknat sighed exasperatedly and yelled out, "Damnit!"

Meanwhile, Twarzy was also sitting with some of his Lycan friends.

"Hey Twarzy! Check that out!" said one of his friends.

Twarzy and some of the other Lycans sitting at the table looked to their right (or left) and saw a female werewolf warrior with dark purple fur walking through the group elegantly. At least to the werewolves anyway. She was very attractive and all of the werewolves were full of lust and wanted to be with her…especially Twarzy. Many of the Lycans were howling at her and making flirtatious wolf whistles followed by more sleazy comments.

"Damn, that bitch is sexy!" said Twarzy.

The purple Lycans walked past Twarzy and he caught of whiff of her, which only increased his devotion to be with her.

"So tomorrow…all of us could die exchanging combat with those werepyres and I have absolutely no memory to cherish if I do die…"

"…What does that have to do with you?"

"I am still a virgin you know…"

"Really…"

Now Twarzy was really starting to like this werewolf chick. Sure, there were other female Lycans in the area, but none as beautiful as she was. His mind was full of nothing but lust right now. And if that's not enough, what really turned Twarzy on was when she turned around and smiled at him, twirling her tail a little bit.

"That's it. I'm going in!" announced Twarzy.

And so the two werewolves ran to the nearest abandoned house, with nothing on Twarzy's mind except for sex. But just as he was about to enter, Harkst bit down on his tail and dragged him back on the ground. Harkst then ran to the purple werewolf and entered the house, locking the door.

"YOU SON OF A BITCH!! OPEN THE DOOR!!" commanded Twarzy, pounding his fists on the door.

Meanwhile, the Were-King has just finished arranging the battle plans with his generals and was walking out of the house with his son.

"So you really think this will work out in the long run Dad?" asked the Were-King's son.

"Of course it will. We are going to lose some Lycans in the process of this conflict, but it shouldn't be murderous for us. All I know is that those wolves with wings we see tomorrow aren't going to leave that canyon alive."

"And you're absolutely 100 percent sure about this?"

The Were-King laughed heartily.

"Without a doubt son! That's why I'm promoting you to command the army tomorrow!"

"Yes, you're promoting me--WHAT!?"

"Yep! You're in command of the Lycan army tomorrow. I'm really proud of you Thrasher."

But Thrasher was still stunned at the promotion to respond. Besides his clan, Thrasher was never the leader of anything this huge before. In fact, the biggest promotion his father gave him was leading 50 werewolf warriors to blow up a vampire castle. But now he was about to rule a whole army!

"Thrasher?" muttered the Were-King.

"Um…Thrasher?"

The Were-King nudged Thrasher and he suddenly fainted and fell backwards onto the ground, unconscious.

* * *

Pretty soon it was nighttime and all of the werewolves were sitting around a campfire, excited and nervous about the battle that would soon begin and leave a mark in Darkovia forever.

"Does anybody here feel like they're gonna die tomorrow?" asked Krazat.

Everyone laughed at Krazat's question because they knew he was simply joking with them.

"Guys, I'm serious."

"Krazat, we're fighting wolves with wings on their backs. How much tougher are they than us? Besides, I hear that yellow werewolf Daxxil scalped one of the werepyres. You serious think anyone in this little ring is going to die tomorrow?" asked Renz-Furr.

"It's a lot harder than it sounds Renz-Furr. We're taking on 10,000 werepyres and they've probably got reinforcements in store for us." said Howndst.

"I know that! I'm just saying do you think any one of us sitting here right now is going to die? Like Twarzy for instance?"

"Shut up Renz-Furr! I'm not in a good mood right now!"

"He's just pissed off at me because I 'stole' his alleged girlfriend from him." growled Harkst.

"Oh. Well, if you ask me, I think the new guy over there is gonna get his tomorrow." said the red werewolf who gave Howndst the goopy meat.

"You really think I'm going to be the one who succumbs to his wounds? I can move from here into that tree the second you blink Dimsiv." said Graknat.

Dimsiv scoffed. Please! Like you could really--"

Dimsiv blinked for only a second and when his eyes opened back up, Graknat had vanished like a ghost.

"Huh?" mumbled Dimsiv.

He looked up in the tree above him to see where Graknat went off to, but he wasn't there either.

"Coulda sworn I--What the hell?!"

Graknat was sitting on the log he was sitting on before once again, smiling widely at Dimsiv.

"Told you."

"You know, I really don't care how many of us end up getting slaughtered. As long as one of us is standing and none of those werepyres are, I'm perfectly fine with that." said Krazat.

"True words couldn't have been better spoken Krazat."

Of course, Twarzy was still grumbling to himself, angry at Harkst for missing possibly his last chance at having sex before his life ended.

"Hey Twarzy! I know what'll cheer you up!" said Harkst.

"What?"

Harkst lifted his left leg and broke wind loud enough to shatter some of the wood on his log. Despite Twarzy's hatred for Harkst, he couldn't help but laugh like an idiot at the sound. Everyone else on the other hand was covering their nose and groaning.

"Nice one Harkst. Any more fetid and I'd be unconscious!" complained Howndst.

"Whoever smelt it, dealt it Howndst!"

"Okay. If that's the way you want to play it…"

Howndst started to grunt very hard until his face turned red. Before Howndst knew it, he was blasting wet farts like crazy and fanning the smell in Harkst's direction.

"How do you like them apples?!"

"I thought smart people don't lower themselves to toilet humor?" questioned Twarzy.

"What? Smart Lycans can't have fun every now and then?"

"…Well, since you put it that way…"

Graknat did the same fart maneuver as Harkst and pretty soon, all of the werewolves sitting around the campfire were howling with laughter and passing gas like crazy. Some of them were fanning the smell away while the others were laughing too hard to even care. After some time, the gas began to die down and the Lycans cracked a few more jokes about their lives and reminisced about the good old days before this war began. The Lycans soon grew tired of their jabbering and fell asleep around the campfire, except for Howndst. Even though he tried to go to sleep, all he could do was stare up at the skies and look at the stars. He was too nervous and excited to sleep now. What really bugged him though was what Krazat asked about one of them dying. He had this bad omen in the pit of his throat, thinking that one of his fellow Lycans was going to die tomorrow.

Was Krazat right? Was someone that Howndst cared for going to leave his life forever? Or was he just worrying too much? Howndst wasn't sure, but all he knew was that something very bad was going to happen tomorrow.


	12. Calm Before the Storm

Calm Before the Storm

**A/N: Look close enough and you'll notice a short cameo appearance of two dragons from my other AQ fanfic, Scales and Tales.**

Tugis was standing in his own little section of Darkovia talking to himself and plotting the battle in his mind…despite how crazy and psychotic it may seem.

"YES!!! Master Irrovs let Tugis go free! Now Tugis can go play with Lycans until Tugis' claws fall off!"

Tugis stopped talking so he could smile demonically and giggle to himself like a maniac. He started hopping up and down like a jackrabbit repeatedly muttering, "TUGIS GETS TO PLAY! TUGIS GETS TO PLAY!!" like he just OD'd on caffeine.

"Tugis is so happy that Tugis just…"

Tugis got on all fours and suddenly howled at the moon with all of his strength. It was just impossible for him to control his attitude and contain himself. He felt so full of joy that the only way to express it was by howling.

"Yes, yes, yesssss…" laughed Tugis, grabbing large clumps of dirt in his paws.

"Tugis will start off by…by greeting those dogs the same way Tugis greets other animals. HA HA!! And then, Tugis will rip their heads off and play soccer with them before Tugis sucks out the Lycans' brains. From that point on, Tugis will simply ravage and destroy whatever werewolf Tugis wants to…and no one will stop Tugis!"

Tugis heard his stomach growl loudly and looked down at it.

"Tugis knows you're hungry. Just…just wait a little longer and you'll have pounds upon pounds of Lycan meat inside you. Tugis will take care of you."

But his stomach only grew louder and continued to growl at him even more.

"There's no need to get angry at Tugis! Stop growling at Tugis; Tugis knows you're not full…but you have to wait. Master said you have to wait!"

Tugis' stomach growled so much that Tugis actually groaned in pain and had to hold his stomach to cease the growling. Tugis sighed heavily and looked at his stomach.

"Fine. It's fine; Tugis will get food for you."

* * *

Meanwhile, Bjovak was sitting upon a bulky log talking to thin air. Yes…he was talking to absolutely no one. At least, no one that any of the other werepyres could see. Along with his schizophrenia, Bjovak was born with a special trait that allowed him to see ghost that didn't reveal themselves. This was actually a pretty useful talent when in battle because he could communicate with fallen werepyres that would advise him of the enemy's battle attack.

"So what's it feel like to die?" asked Bjovak.

The werepyre spirit sighed. "What, you mean actually dying right then and there, or the afterlife?"

"Afterlife."

The werepyre spirit shrugged. "Peaceful…there are no battles to worry about and everyone seems friendly with each other, like some happy sappy cabin full of werepyres. It SUCKS ASS!!! Why's it so goddamn peaceful?!!?"

Bjovak laughed heartily. "Hey, you're the one who tried to take on Daxxil and his smelly cronies Wylite! Not surprised you got scalped!"

"Yeah, you can talk. You still have the top of your head."

"What're you talking about? You look perfectly fine to me."

"No my _spirit _looks fine. My body's brain is exposed and in a hole in the ground where a bunch of glow worms and all sorts of bugs are crawling through my innards."

"Yeah, me and the boys and no fun burying you at all. Your corpse reeked and I think you released your bowels after you died…unless one of my men crapped himself."

Bjovak and Wylite's spirit stopped talking when a large werepyre wearing a green shirt landed in front of the two of them. It was Tugis, who was slobbering all over himself.

"…I'm not familiar with you. What's your name werepyre?"

"Tugis' name is Tugis! Tugis is a very unique werepyre; yes he is. What's yours?" asked Tugis, wagging his tail.

"My name's Bjovak. I myself am a unique werepyre as well, although many other don't seem to treasure this talent."

Tugis sat down on the log next to Bjovak, unaware that he was sitting on Wylite's spirit.

"What talent is that? Tugis love werepyres with special talents!"

"Even though I have schizophrenia, I can talk to ghosts and spirits. Not really sure why, but people find that annoying."

Tugis gasped happily. "You can talk to ghosts?! Tugis wants to talk to ghosts too! Why can't Tugis speak to the undead?!"

"Get your fat ass offa me!" yelled Wylite's spirit.

Bjovak chuckled. "Well if you move to your left a little you can speak to one."

"Huh?"

"You're sitting on Wylite-Drakkson's ghost."

Tugis quickly shifted to his left and got off Wylite's spirit.

"Do you see him Tugis?" asked Bjovak.

Tugis focused his eyes onto the space between himself and Bjovak, but he didn't see much of anything.

"No, no…Tugis can't see him."

"Damn! I was hoping I could talk to someone else besides this guy!"

"WAIT!! Tugis heard him! Tugis heard the dead werepyre speak!"

"…Really? You can hear me but you can't see me?" asked Wylite's spirit.

"Yep. Nice to meet you! What's your name?"

"Wylite-Drakkson. I got my scalp sliced off by one of those smelly Lycans."

Tugis smiled. "That's okay. That's why Tugis and Bjovak and Master Irrovs will go and play with those Lycans today!"

"Uh…play?"

"Yes, play!"

Everything became awkwardly silent and nobody said anything a while.

"Kay, I'm gonna…I'm gonna go now. See you guys later." said Wylite's spirit.

"See ya!" shouted Tugis, waving goodbye.

Just as Wylite's spirit flew away, Tugis started to sniff the air and his nose guided him to Bjovak's feet.

"What, you gonna tell me how bad my feet stink too? It's not my fault all the males in my family suffered from a skin rash on their soles that gave them foot odor!"

"Not the feet Bjovak!"

Tugis continued to sniff the ground next to Bjovak's feet and suddenly stuck his head into the ground, slurping like crazy. When his head reemerged, he had a bunch of nasty flees in his mouth that were buried in the soil. But they weren't normal sized flees at all. The flees most commonly found in Lore come from a Wild Bingo and are from another planet. The flees were also about the size of a werepyre and were grotesque and fat. They tasted like glue to Tugis, but he needed to eat something or else his stomach would eat itself. Tugis gulped the ugly bugs and patted his belly, satisfied with his meal.

"Are you happy now stomach?! Tugis has fed you!"

Bjovak raised an eyebrow and said, "You're a fairly weird werepyre."

"That's why you all love Tugis!" said Tugis, with a wicked smile on his face again.

* * *

Back on the Lycans' side of the conflict, Daxxil was greeting an old dragon friend he knew a while back. His name was Daxin-Backbreath, a relatively unhygienic WereDragon who was known for pranking several other young dragons in the past.

"Hey Daxin! How's it goin' my fellow WereDragon?" asked Daxxil.

Daxin-Backbreath laughed heartily. "It's been an eventful life."

"I'm guessing you haven't been thrown in more holes filled with dragon dung, right?"

"That was over 12 years ago! When will you people get over that?!!?"

Daxxil laughed. "There are some smells you can't wash away and that was one of them!"

"Eh, I sleep in my own crap anyways and it's not like I brush my teeth. So what do you need me for again?" asked Daxin.

"The Were-King and a large sum of our troops are going into battle pretty soon, and we get this feeling that Wolfwing has a trap planned in store for us, something involving plasma dragons. I need you to get some of your friends to patrol the skies over Razmik Canyon as backup in case this plan follows through."

"Anything for you Daxxil! Just as long as you scratch under my chin…"

Daxxil started to stroke his claws underneath Daxin-Backbreath's chin and he started sighing contently with his right hind leg and tail rapidly going up and down. Daxxil raised Daxin-Backbreath ever since he was a little baby WereDragon. Perhaps this would explain why he stank as bad as his owner does.

"Don't worry Daxxil! I'll get those dragons in the sky faster than you can say 'Thrasher's your uncle!'"

"What?"

"Exactly."

Daxin-Backbreath spread his wings and flew away into the night sky.

* * *

Howndst found the Were-King's son, Thrasher, standing in a secluded broken down building practicing using different types of fire and light elemental swords and weapons. Thrasher knew that the werepyres were possibly planning on trying to attack him first, so he needed to re-familiarize himself with the weapons. Besides, Thrasher wouldn't be a very good leader if he didn't know how to fight like his own Lycans.

"Hey Thrasher?" asked Howndst.

Thrasher put down his Fearsome DuaLight and responded by asking, "What is it Howndst?"

"You got this…funny feeling in the pit of your stomach? Like something big is about to happen?"

"No. Well, not including the minor indigestion, no. Why, did someone tell you something?"

"I just think this battle is going to change things, that's all."

"We got over 3000 Lycans who are about to face off against twice as many werepyres. I just got promoted and we just had a funeral for Jriv. Of course this battle is going to change things."

"That's not what I mean Thrasher. You think someone of great value's gonna bite the dust today? Like Krazat for example?"

Thrasher snickered. "Why should I care for some low level Lycan like him? You should already know we're gonna lose werewolf warriors Howndst; that's why the words cannon fodder was invented. Besides, I think you should be focusing more on your hatred for Wolfwing and his soldiers instead of worrying how many friends you'll lose today."

Howndst sighed heavily. "Yeah, you're right."

"This isn't gonna distract you while we're in combat is it? I can't have ANY werewolves who aren't fully ready for this battle you know."

"Don't worry about it Thrasher. I still know how to fight!"

"Good."

Howndst walked away chomping on another sloppy chunk of clear stinky meat.

"So what is that again?"

"…I don't really know."

"You don't know...and yet you're eating it. Howndst you realize that smells like my feet after I stepped in a patch of dead ogres right?"

"Here's the thing Thrasher. My brother used to pull really, really disgusting pranks on me. I'm talking about farting in the tent I was sleeping in, replacing my toothpaste with crud from the roof of the mouths of frogzards, dumping hair from an elfephant's butt into my shirt, and so on and so forth. But one day, my brother got real creative. He hired this fire dragon--Brihart was his name I think--to sit on me and fart until his colon dried up. In the process, I got stuck in his butthole."

Thrasher fell to the floor and started to laugh hysterically, unable to believe a Lycan as smart as Howndst ended up in that predicament.

"You know what, it gets worse. Not only did the inside of his buttcheeks reek, my brother gave this dragon a bunch of laxatives. I couldn't tell if the smell of his rectum was what got to me, or if it was getting pooped out by a fire dragon. All I know is that something that day stank so much I can't even tell the difference between odors and fragrances."

"Wow! So you actually like stinky smells now?"

"Why do you think I tolerate Harkst and his feet everyday?"

* * *

Across the lands of Lore, a large clan of Drakels were stomping their way along the grassy plains looking for more territory. Most of them were Drakel Warriors and Fire Drakel Warriors, but there were a few Drakel Captains and Destroyers stuffed into the group. All in all, the whole coalition was pretty resistant to any enemy they encountered. Everything was fine in the group, up until a grotesque trumpeting sound was heard and a mysteriously black cloud formed in between the group.

"Oh damnit, WHO FARTED?!!!?" yelled a drakel captain.

Everybody started groaning and holding their noses, appalled at the stench.

"…My bad." said a blue drakel destroyer.

"Nice goin' BP! You planted another rotten egg in the group!" scolded a drakel warrior.

"Hey, it's not my fault I pass gas when I get nervous!"

"That's just it BP! You only do it when we're about to engage in combat. And then right after you start fighting, you go all out on the enemy like you're a demon."

"Lay off the guy Briz. Unlike you, he doesn't shit himself silly when he faces a sand dragon." said another drakel captain.

Some of the other drakel warriors laughed at Briz and he began to turn red.

"I only did that once!"

"You did it eight times Briz; I'm actually keeping score."

"All right drakels, stop getting all antsy cause someone broke wind. It's completely natural and healthy. Now…there's an outpost full of weaponry near Dragonspine Mountain and our leaders would appreciate it if we got it for them."

"Isn't that place housing a shitload of Dracomancers and Vartai soldiers?" asked Briz.

"Just be glad Xerxes and Lord Cyrus aren't there, okay? It's very simple: We go in, kill the Dracomancers and Vartai, get the weapons, and get out. Sound good?"

All of the dragon/humanoid reptiles nodded their heads and took out their weapons, ready to attack the compound.

* * *

The moment had arrived. It was finally here. Thrasher and his platoon of Lycans were walking through the crevices of Razmik Canyon, ready to face off against the Irrovs and his army. It was around two in the afternoon, but as always, it seemed like nighttime in Darkovia. Nobody heard anything besides the sounds of their own feet kicking up the sand as they planted their soles on the ground. The canyon itself was over 70 feet tall on both sides and it was impossible to scale. The only way to hide from the enemy in this canyon was to dig a ditch and throw yourself in it or turn around and pray that an arrow doesn't go through the back of your skull, or find a cave built in the canyon. That wasn't the only bad thing about the canyon though; tens of thousands of souls had been lost in this one canyon alone. It got to the point where if a Lycan didn't step on sand, they'd inadvertently crush a skull or bone with their foot.

But it didn't matter. Everybody was thinking of various miscellaneous ideas; very few were focused on the battle. For instance, Thrasher was thinking of something more important than the battle.

(Damn…I forgot to ask Dad what to do with the bodies. God, this canyon's gonna be filled with gnats and flies! I'm so sick of flies buzzing around my ass!) he thought.

(Heh heh…it's gonna be so much fun shoving my bows in these werepyres' heads!) thought Twarzy.

(Hmm…maybe I should tell Daxxil to take a bath. Nah, he'll probably just stick a bar of soap in my mouth again.) thought Krazat.

(I'm hungry! Why did I have to give my last Moglin to Sytrus?!) whined Blargazn in his mind.

(I'll tell Howndst he was eating PteraZard droppings AFTER we get through this battle. The last thing I need to do is die early.) thought Sytrus.

(Maybe I should slit Sytrus' throat for fooling me into eating PteraZard crap. I swear, that tasted like meat!) thought Howndst.

And so on and so forth. Despite everything, they were pumped and ready for this battle.

* * *

On the other side of the canyon, twice as many werepyres were walking through the bone filled sand, thinking of the impending battle unlike the Lycans. Of course, hundreds of werepyres were also flapping their wings above the horde of werepyres, including Bjovak and Irrovs. Tugis, Byric, Quivilk and a few others were walking with the rest of the werepyres. Like always, Tugis wasn't able to control himself.

"PLAAAAY!! PLAY, PLAY, PLAY, PLAY! PLAY, PLAY, PLAY, PLAY!!!" he shouted while hopping up and down like a hyperactive bunyip.

It was actually kinda funny because the other werepyre standing next to him was watching him jump up and down. He was also very creeped out by Tugis. But then again, if you looked at a werepyre who abruptly twirled his head in your direction and said, "PLAAAAAAYYY…" with a demonic smile on his face and drool seeping between his teeth, you'd get creeped out too.

"So Byric, you gonna live up to your concept of 'fairness' once again?" asked a werepyre in a brown shirt named Achmeft.

"That's the thing about a full out battle like this: anything goes, fair or not. If battles like the one we're about to engage were 100% fair, then it wouldn't be a battle now would it? But that doesn't mean I'm gonna try to sneak up behind my enemy and cowardly snap his neck like you do."

"…Was that a compliment or a dis, cause I feel like you just dissed me man."

Byric chuckled. "Just keep walking. We'll be fine."

From that point on, there were only a few werepyres making light conversation amongst another, just like the Lycans were doing. It didn't take too long for both races to meet each other in the center of Razmik Canyon. Of course, every single werepyre and werewolf weren't at the intersection, but a good portion of both armies were there, excluding Byric and Fliowtoes. They decided to stay behind and act as the backup squadron in case they realized that their side was losing. So it was roughly around one or two thousand Lycans and werepyres standing there with bated breath, waiting for the other side to do something. This was the most climactic part of the battle…just when it's about to start and you got that gut feeling that you may get killed by your enemy.

Everything was quiet. Too quiet obviously. It was quiet enough to hear not only your own heart beat, but your friend's. A Lycan lifted up his toe and one of the werepyres was a few centimeters away from charging right for the werewolves. Thrasher could see Irrovs smiling and flapping his wings in the air, waiting for him to make his move. Thrasher smirked and took out his weapon.

"LYCANS!! ARM YOURSELVES!!!" alerted Thrasher.

All of the werewolves grunted and took out all of their weapons they brought along with them…if they even had weapons. Some of the werewolves were actually amazed at Thrasher's intimidating voice; they had no idea his voice could be that booming. Like father, like son, they guessed.

"WEREPYRES!!!"

All of the werepyres did the same thing as the Lycans did, holstering many weapons in their hands. All of them were growling in the pit of their throat, their fingers twitching like crazy. It was about to happen any second now.

"CHAAAAARRRGE!!!" bellowed Thrasher.

"GGGGOOOOOOOOO!!!" screamed Irrovs.

The platoon of wolves with wings and humanoid canines became to shout out battle cries at the top of their lungs and ran to each other, ready to attack.

The Battle of Razmik Canyon had started…


	13. The Battle of Razmik Canyon, part 1

The Battle of Razmik Canyon, part 1

So there a couple hundred Lycans on one side and a couple hundreds werepyres on the other side. It was nothing more and it was nothing less. There were a few plants here and there and maybe a few critters hopping around, but that was the overall battle right there. All of the soldiers were charging towards each other like rabid bulls that just spotted a giant red tree. Howndst was just one of these hundreds of rabid bulls; there was naught much he could do alone. But that didn't mean he couldn't do _something_ to further his role in the battle. Howndst knew how to approach the enemy during battle situations just like this one. First off, he had his Lycan Slasher held high over his head just like all the other Lycans and werepyres, so it made it look like he was prepared for anything, even if he wasn't. But the strategy and tactics didn't come in until later on, when the Lycans first made contact with the enemy. See, most bad guys think that you should start the attack by swinging your sword down vertically, but this is not the case. While your head is well protected, your viscera are left wide open. So the second Howndst came into contact with a werepyre, he jolted his Slasher down so that it was horizontal and pointed forward like an arrow. The werepyre in front of him was confused by the sudden movement and wound up getting stabbed in his gut.

That was only lesson one of the battle though. The second part is to not divert all your energy on the first strike. Be quick and nimble about it. After Howndst stabbed the werepyre in his stomach, he moved the sword down until his innards fell out and the werepyre fell to the ground, dead. It took him only two seconds to kill the werepyre; all the time that should be used. But some of the other werepyres and werewolves were getting "creative" with their first kills…Harkst in particular. But aside from that, Howndst was surrounded by hundreds of furry creatures he couldn't identify. That's when his sight came into play. Howndst saw a giant set of red wings and after he did, he quickly ran to them and found a red werepyre with his back turned. Howndst jabbed his Lycan Slasher into his spine and moved the wedge left, cutting it in half. Howndst was unable to find another set of wings, but that was perfectly fine in his book. This is where his nose came into play.

After the grotesque and vomit-inducing experience with that flame dragon, Howndst never minded stinky smells. And now would be a perfect time to use his nose. Certain werepyres never brush their teeth and eat a rare type of animal only found in desolate caves. Others attract (or are attracted to) germs and bacteria, so their B.O. is…impressive. Some werepyres have foul breath and B.O. (or in Bjovak's case foot odor) but that didn't matter, because all werepyres have one certain quality that makes them aromatic: musk. Like many animals in the kingdom, they have a unique smell on their body which they use to mark territory or alert others to their position. This "musk" was something that would make a Lycan's hair stand up slightly. Sure, this smell wasn't sugary and sweet, but it sure as hell was easily identifiable, especially for Howndst. He flared his nostrils and sniffed the air twice and got a huge whiff of a blue werepyre who hadn't showered in days. Howndst jumped over an alpha werewolf and found the werepyre, who was ready to impale a rookie Lycan in the chest. Howndst let out a gruff snarl and jabbed the werepyre in his scalp. He sniffed the air again and got wind of halitosis. But it wasn't just halitosis (lots of Lycans have bad breath) it was also the musk that alerted his senses. Howndst pretty much had eyes in the back of his head. He swung his Slasher backwards and waited five seconds. It was extremely risky, but he needed to teach the rookie a lesson. So after the fifth second, a head covered in grey fur fell into his hands and Howndst turned around to see a decapitated grey werepyre wearing all yellow. All he did was sniff the air twice and he knew where a werepyre was and how to kill it. The rookie opened his mouth to say "Thank you." but Howndst ignored him and hopped over his body. A full out battle was going on and there wasn't much point in thanking somebody if they were gonna get killed 12 or two seconds later.

Another thing Howndst had to take into consideration was his audible levels. There were hundreds of warriors screaming, roaring, snarling, and dying all around him, the swords were clanging, flesh was being torn open. Howndst taught himself to ignore all that. The only thing he needed to hear was clothing. Strange, one might say, but he had the facts figured out. All the werepyres were wearing shirts and pants and belts, while ALL the Lycans were naked, excluding their armor. So if Howndst heard fabric tearing or pants fluttering in the breeze, he knew an enemy was very close by. Howndst was just lucky that he wasn't fighting vampire slayers or his hearing would be near useless. Howndst heard someone rip a werepyre's shirt wide open before the werepyre responded by clawing the werewolf's face off. Howndst jetted across the dirt and found a werepyre wearing a now ripped orange shirt and standing over a werewolf with a giant gash in his face. Howndst ran up to the werepyre and slit his throat before stabbing his in the chin and killing him.

Now some people were thinking about the other senses, touch and taste, but those weren't very helpful in this situation. All the creatures had fur and some type of metal weapon on their possession so it didn't really help to touch what you thought was your enemy, but was really your friend. And as for taste, that only helped when you were crushing the skull of your enemy (as Graknat demonstrated at the feast the other day). If Howndst found an enemy and bit him on the arm and it turned out to be a friendly…that would put him in a very, very awkward situation. And, like always, there was always the most important rule Howndst had to keep in mind: Never hesitate. Ignore the fact your enemy is angry and foaming at the teeth, ignore the enemy's foul odor, ignore the enemy's bad breath, ignore how strong the enemy is, how tough and burly he is. All Howndst needed to know was that he had a weapon in his hands…and he knew who the enemy was and he knew how to kill. It was that simple.

Not even a full minute had passed and Howndst already killed five werepyres. And there were another several thousand to go. Lucky for Howndst, he had lots of help with the battle. Like Graknat, Harkst, Sytrus, Daxxil, Krazat, and the rest of the Lycan clan were getting aggressive with the werepyres. Daxxil was killing werepyres left and right with his Fearsome DuaLight, removing a bunch of organs from the victims he killed. The strategy that Daxxil used the most was his own stench. After slaughtering twelve werepyres, he came into contact with a werepyre sergeant wearing all black. His name was Nilzz, and he just received the promotion a day ago. Both of them were armed with Fearsome DuaLights and as they began to fight, they slashed their swords against each other. Nilzz and Daxxil were snarling and snapping their teeth at each other, getting slobber upon the other's face and their feet were literally jammed into the dirt to restrict their movement. The last thing the other wanted was to see that his guard was slowly declining. But Daxxil soon found the werepyre's weakness as he continued to snarl at him. Nilzz gave Daxxil a contorted glance before his eye twitched and began to water. Nilzz took one step back and Daxxil smiled slyly.

It was his breath that made the sergeant back down. Nilzz didn't have osmophobia, but if you were staring at a Lycan who was exhaling his foul breath in your face, you'd throw a breath mint in his mouth…which Nilzz didn't have. So Daxxil snarled even louder and Nilzz had to back up even more to shut his eyes and rub the slobber off his face. The second Nilzz opened his eyes, he had a long, yellow blade in his mouth and his jaw had been severed. He didn't even feel it; the shock must've been so severe that it took the pain away. Nilzz hacked out a few globs of saliva before he fell to the ground and died.

Harkst was doing a badass job as well. But due to his nature, he had no tactic at the moment except to find any victims' hearts he could devour. A grey werepyre tackled him to the ground and almost bit his face off, but he was saved when Princkl decapitated him. Harkst jammed his claws into the deceased werepyre's chest and ripped out his heart, swallowing it in one gulp. Harkst became pumped by eating the heart and howled loudly at the moon before he started laughing evilly while holstering his Fearsome DuaLight. He roared as he ran deeper into the battlefield, killing just about any and every werepyre he spotted. Harkst jumped onto a werepyre and before he knocked him off, he jerked his legs sideways and snapped the werepyre's neck. Then he saw two werepyres ravenously devouring the remains of an alpha werewolf, which only made Harkst angrier. He snuck up behind the two and cut off one of their wings, causing him to scream. Then he jammed his hand into the werepyre's spine, grabbing his heart and pulling it through his back. The other werepyre noticed this and stabbed Harkst in the face, leaving a giant scar. Harkst growled gutturally and slowly moved his head to the werepyre, who was watching his wound heal. The werepyre groaned so loudly after Harkst stabbed him in the crotch that a glass pane might've shattered in the distance. Harkst moved his blade upward until it cut the werepyre completely in half and his body split into two.

Some wise man thought of a wise saying that many Lycans still go by even today: Whoever stays in the rear, takes it in the rear. And the last thing Thrasher needed was to get his own ass kicked by his army just because he was too much of a coward to take on the enemy himself, so he decided to participate as well. He was in the same sort of situation as Harkst, only a lot more gruesome. Thrasher was taking step by step on the ground mutilating any werepyre he came into contact with. One werepyre wearing all red tried to cut off his head, but Thrasher grabbed his throat and crushed it with his hand, tearing out his throat and swallowing the remains. Another blue werepyre in brown attempted to stab him in the gut with his claws. The werepyre managed to scratch some of Thrasher's fur off…but wound up getting chomped in half in a single bite. Thrasher gulped loudly and coughed out part of the werepyre's wing before he continued his carnage. That's when five--not just two or three--but a whole clan of werepyre's landed in front of Thrasher, ready to attack him. All the werepyre's had jet black skin and were wearing some sort of odd camouflage khaki clothes, like they were in the military. All of them weren't equipped with anything but their bare hands and they were staring at the bulky werewolf, smiling and showing their teeth. Thrasher simply got on all fours and growled at the clan, lifting his tail in the air and digging his claws into the soil. Two werepyres leaped into the air and yelled as they lashed their claws at Thrasher. Thrasher snarled and swiped his claws at them only once and turned around to watch the two cease with their running. Both werepyre's winced and grunted before they fell to the ground, severed in half.

"What the hell…?" said a werepyre, before Thrasher clawed the top of his head off.

The remaining werepyre's in the clan took a step backwards, but Thrasher saw their hint of weakness and leaped onto the two like a cheetah, biting and chomping on them ruthlessly, tearing them limb from limb. It had gotten so bad that one of the werepyre's wasn't even recognizable after the mutilation. The other one was having his intestines slurped up like a noodle by Thrasher, who swallowed the innards and licked the blood off his lips, roaring at his opposing army.

* * *

But it wasn't just the Lycans who were delivering a beating. A large portion of the werepyres was handling themselves very well. Among those was Byric of course, but one of his friends, Bjovak was doing well too. Irrovs wasn't in the battle yet, but his "pet" Tugis surely was. What made the werepyres different than the werewolves was that they were calm…which was weird. Whenever a rookie Lycan warily approached Byric, he growled under his breath and flashed them this menacing stare. One of those, "You can try to fuck with me, but it's not gonna end well." looks. Because of this, many of the rookie werewolf warriors avoided Byric and killed the werepyre next to him or far away from his position.

Like Howndst, Byric had the same strategy for killing his enemies. Although, he put his olfactory sense into play first. It wasn't hard to spot a Lycan, let alone smell one since some of them hate taking baths (or, like Daxxil and his crew) have a phobia about being clean. Even Howndst himself admitted to having no problem with stinky smells, so he didn't bathe at all. Aside from that, Byric used his hearing to identify his enemy. More than likely, the Lycan he was about to face was going to growl at him gutturally or get on all his paws and look like they're about to pounce on him. So Byric would just stand there and calmly walk along the mud, waiting for an over boasted alpha werewolf to try and subdue him. But it never worked out for the Lycan in the end. For instance, one alpha werewolf with purple fur tried to stab Byric from behind, but Byric backflipped in a matter of four seconds just as his shirt was about to tear. The werewolf grunted questionably, wondering where he went to. Byric tapped the alpha werewolf on the shoulder before he stabbed the burly creature in the face.

Another Lycan warrior (who Byric quickly identified by his scent) challenged him to a one-on-one sword fight. Both of them wielded a large Fearsome DuaLight and entered a fighter's stance, growling at each other. The werewolf struck first, lashing his sword at Byric, who swatted the sword away like a fly. The werewolf snarled and snapped his teeth at Byric like a turtle. Byric merely countered these attacks with his claws until the Lycan ditched his sword and decided to take on Byric with his own two hands. Byric waited for the Lycan to leap at him before he dropped his sword and grabbed the Lycan by his upper and lower jaw, holding both rows of his teeth. Byric jerked his upper jaw left and the lower one right, forcing the Lycan to whine loudly. After that, Byric clawed him in the throat before he picked up his sword and stabbed the werewolf warrior in the torso twice. Before the Lycan fell down, he impaled the werewolf in his scalp like an ax. The warrior fell down slowly and Byric took out his sword to continue his fight with other Lycans.

Bjovak was having a very easy time taking on the Lycans. But he had an advantage the other werepyres didn't have: A talking ghost. The whole situation was eerie to other werepyres because they really thought that Bjovak was crazy, when he was almost as smart as Byric. What made the situation a little funny was that Bjovak didn't even need ghosts to help him, which was really pissing them off.

"On the left!" shouted Wylite's spirit.

Bjovak ducked as a werewolf shot an arrow at him and he chucked a large rock at the archer. The werewolf warrior plummeted out the tree and fell on the ground, cracking his skull on a thick log. Bjovak flew to the subdued Lycan and stomped on his chest with his large feet, crushing his ribs.

"Thanks."

"No problem. Now most werewolves would try to attack you by striking you from above so you need to--"

Bjovak ignored Wylite's spirit and stabbed an alpha werewolf in the chest without looking to his right. Then he jumped on his body and proceeded to cut off the top of his skull, scalping him. Bjovak threw the scalp at Wylite's spirit, forgetting that he was a ghost.

"You were supposed to catch that!!"

"I'M A GHOST DUMBASS!"

"Who are you talking to?" asked an orange werepyre wearing only grey shorts named Vorshk.

"Uh…no one…" said Bjovak uncomfortably.

Meanwhile, Tugis was walking around the canyon killing any werewolf who stood in his way. A lot of the werewolves avoided Tugis due to his grim appearance. No one wants to mess with a bulky furry creature with slobber and foam on his teeth and tongue who had a deranged smile on his face and in his eyes. The werepyre was muttering things to himself while looking for a werewolf, breathing loudly and hissing like a snake.

"What's wrong? Doesn't anyone want to play with Tugis?" asked Tugis.

Tugis walked down the canyon slowly until a werewolf tried to attack from behind. Tugis sprang into life and grabbed the werewolf by his throat, similar to what Byric did with the vampire slayers he killed. Tugis smiled so widely the werewolf thought his teeth would pop out his mouth.

"PLLAAAAAAAAYYYY!!!" screamed Tugis.

The maniacally playful werepyre threw the werewolf on the ground and began to tear away at his "toy" until he came to a conclusion that his intestines and face were getting ripped apart. Tugis began to rip chunk after chunk of the werewolf's meat and swallowed it with glee. Blood and bones were all over his face, which Tugis licked off with his long tongue.

"Yesss…you play very well with Tugis. Very well indeed."

Tugis laughed out of nowhere and started sprinting down the canyon looking for more werewolves to play with…and eat. That's when he came across two dark pink werewolves who were laughing and growling at how many werepyres they killed so far. They ran into the slobbering Tugis and all three of them ceased walking.

"Well lookie here! Seems we got a senior werepyre on our hands Derek!"

Both werewolves were male, but due to the color of their fur, they were always mistaken for girls.

"You ready for a fight?!" growled Derek's friend.

Tugis suddenly sat down like a dog and grunted questionably.

"What does girly Lycan mean by fight? Tugis doesn't want to fight! Tugis just wants to have fun! …Can you show Tugis some fun?"

The pink alpha werewolves looked at the werepyre with weird expressions on their faces. Tugis simply continued to sit down on the ground wagging his tail left and right. After staring for a while, Derek laughed and said, "Yeah, sure. I'll show ya some fun!" and leaped towards him, stabbing Tugis in the chest. Tugis grabbed both the sword and Derek's claws and moved them both backwards until the sword was no longer in his chest. Tugis smiled widely again before giggling and jammed the sword into Derek's groin, causing the pink alpha werewolf to spit up blood. Tugis started laughing to himself and growling as he moved the sword vertically to his heart, cutting through the Lycan's genitals and scrotum, reaching his way to the chest. The only thing Derek could do was cough up more blood and roll his eyes into the back of his brain until Tugis cut Derek completely in half.

"THIS IS FUN!!"

The other werewolf attacked him too, but Tugis threw the Lycan Slasher into the other werewolf's face, knocking him to the ground. Tugis started laughing even louder than before and he pulled out the Slasher and slit the werewolf's throat, sucking out all the blood like his throat was a water fountain. He belched loudly and started whacking the Slasher at the Lycan's neck, slowly chopping it off in the process. After a while, he decapitated the werewolf and started fidgeting with his head, before he began to eat the insides from the severed portion up. He was slobbering and chewing and laughing as he dunked his head into the corpse's neck and ate all of the organs inside of it, including the brain.

"So juicy! TUGIS LOVES IT! TUGIS LOVES IT SO MUCH!!" he yelled.

Tugis then looked inside the head and, for some unknown reason, stuffed his own head inside it. All the bones and meat had been sucked out so he was simply wearing the skin over his head. It didn't fit perfectly, but Tugis didn't care; he was enjoying himself. While donning the mask, Tugis realized that he looked exactly like the pink werewolf, but with a different body. So naturally, he started to imitate the Lycans by hoisting his claws into the air and stomping around in the dirt like a monster.

"RRRRAAAAAHHHH!!! TUGIS IS A WEREWOLF!! RRRRRAAAAHHHH!!!"

* * *

A werepyre groaned loudly as it was stabbed in the back by Blargazn.

"That's thirteen now Green Breath! You only got seven!" yelled Blargazn, laughing in his face.

Gref the Green Breath was a green alpha werewolf who had nasty green breath and nasty green farts and nasty green armor and was just plain…nasty. He got the nickname after he drank sulfuric acid and belched so much that his burps were visible and aromatic. Since then, he's always been burping green gas clouds and lately, the acid has been working its way to his bowels so now he farts green gas clouds.

"Shut up Blargazn! You know I'm gonna kill more werepyres than you!"

"Fine! Whoever kills more werepyres gets to eat cheese brains for breakfast tomorrow!"

The two alpha werewolves shook hands and smiled at each other…just before Gref had an arrow shot through the side of his cheek.

"What the hell?!" said Blargazn, just before he was shot in the back with three arrows as well.

Vorshk and his clan approached the subdued alpha werewolves and were about to kill him when one of the werepyres stopped Vorshk at the last second.

"Wait a minute!"

"What Yulil?"

"These werewolves look very…peculiar."

"They sure as hell smell peculiar! Ain't this guy a member of Daxxil's stinky forces?"

"Yeah, so maybe we should interrogate them and find out what positions they plan on occupying later in the day. Grab his feet and drag him into that cave."

A werepyre groaned and held his nose.

"What?"

"I'm not putting my hands anywhere near his smelly feet." said Plikt, a black werepyre.

Vorshk groaned and rolled his eyes, grabbing Blargazn's feet for Plikt and dragging his body into the cave for him. The other werepyres dragged Gref by his arms into the same cave, disappearing without a trace into the darkness.

**To be continued…**


	14. The Battle of Razmik Canyon, part 2

The Battle of Razmik Canyon, part 2

While the Lycans and werepyres were fighting each other in the bowels of Razmik Canyon, Count Vork and two of his cronies were traveling to some temple in the midst of Skraeling Desert, looking for a valuable explosives expert. Vork had made deals with this expert several times before and despite the fact he was weird and disgusting, he was very smart when it came to explosives and flammable gases. Explosives ran through his family's veins and he cherished how he made all these bombs and how they exploded. It was nighttime (not just in Darkovia, everywhere) so the desert was cold like the winter and Vork and his vampire lords were freezing. But they'd soon heat up once they entered the demolition expert's lair.

"Tell me Count Claussim, why do you need to see this expert so quickly?" asked a green and brown-skinned vampire named Slukez.

"Because we'll need his bombs to sabotage the Lycans' weapons depots. Plus, now would be the opportunity to take out those dogs' communiqué systems. The last thing we need is for the werewolves to contact the Drakel and have them send a band of enforcer mercenaries to us. I doubt Queen Safiria will like that."

"Yeah, but why do we have to visit this demolition guy in particular?"

"He owes me a favor…well, twelve favors actually. Besides, he's a lot cheaper than most experts I hire; this guy doesn't even charge Z-Tokens."

Slukez shrugged. "If you say so."

So Vork and his cronies entered the temple and were instantly overwhelmed by the intense heat of the place. They felt like they walked into a furnace in the middle of the sun, or fell into the center of the earth.

"Ugh…what's the foul stench in the air?" asked a black vampire lord named Abrick.

"Eh, you'll get used to it."

Vork walked over to the demolitionist's door and he pressed this button next to it to alert him. Some weird thick optic cable zoomed in on Vork and his crew from the inside and started greeting them in a garbled language. Vork simply responded with the same dialect and the optic cable laughed out loud, shortly before it sucked itself back into the wall. Vork and his comrades waited for a few minutes before the door in front of them opened up from the center and gradually increased in diameter, making a loud metallic groan in the process. It only opened halfway, mostly because the door was rusty and always malfunctioned. Suddenly, a creature revealed himself and grunted as he tried to climb through the half-open hole, but realized he was too big to get through it head on. So he turned around and stuck his left leg and buttocks through the hole first, giving the vampires a horrible view to look at. And if that wasn't enough, the creature broke wind in a squeaky, loud tone which made the vampires (except Vork) groan loudly and veer their heads backwards. The creature slid through the hole backward and landed in front of the vampires with his back turned, passing gas once again. The creature turned around and revealed himself.

"How's it goin' Khlarsht? Make up any new bomb yet?" asked an anxious Vork.

The creature Vork was looking at was some reptilian humanoid similar to the Drakel. Khlarsht had teal scales and was wearing some sort of jet black mechanic dressing with its sleeves rolled up. The creature had a couple of large, noticeable bumps all over his scalp and back as though they were spikes ready to break through the threshold. Whatever this creature was, he was very fat and shorter than most of his kind; only five and a half feet. Vork himself was at least 10 inches taller, or even a full foot. He was also barefoot and had a lazy-right eye.

"HA HA!! You know I've been building bombs since I was seven years old! It's in the family blood!"

Khlarsht spoke with this loud accent. It sounded a little slurred or perhaps Eastern European, but there was no doubt in Vork's mind that he was foreign to some extent.

"Yeah, that's cool--you wanna tell us what that horrible odor is?" asked Abrick.

Khlarsht laughed heartily again with his belly shaking. "It's all part of the family business! Come on inside and I'll show ya!"

Khlarsht hopped up next to the door and began to crawl through the hole, getting stuck halfway through just like before. He grunted twice before he was finally able to throw his whole body into the temple with a loud thud afterwards. Vork and his subordinates calmly went through the door and entered Khlarsht's armory. The second they entered the interior of the compound, the vampires were overwhelmed by a fetid stench that burned their nose hairs and made them sneeze loudly, shortly before they groaned and covered their noses. Although Vork didn't seem to mind the smell at all. He was paying more attention to all the types of explosives Khlarsht had stored of shelves and stowed away inside cabinets and boxes. And it was funny, because someone as lazy and filthy as Khlarsht somehow created an arsenal of explosives that could supply a Drakel coalition for 10 years.

"I never had a…happy childhood when I was growing up."

"This is Darkovia; I don't think anyone has lived in this forest without losing something of great value to them." said Slukez.

"Yeah, well I bet you weren't ostracized like my family was."

"You got thrown out of your own village?"

"Yeah. The thing about my family is…"

Khlarsht stopped talking momentarily so he could hike his left leg up and break wind, laughing and fanning the smell towards the vampires.

"UGH!! You have a colon disorder?!" asked Slukez.

"My father, well actually most members of my family, suffers from severe flatulence and IBS so we tend to make our village relatively stinky now and then. Eventually, the whole damn colony got tired of our constant pooping and gas expulsions and we were cast out of the village. During this time, my father figured out that methane is flammable, which is in our flatulence. And if that wasn't enough, he also figured out that sulfur produced a dark blue flame when set ablaze and that our gas contains small traces of that too."

"Is there a point to any of this?" asked Abrick.

Khlarsht grunted for a while before he let loose a wet fart that sounded like he was farting underwater.

"I was getting to that! You see, upon figuring out that our flatulence was highly flammable, let alone explosive, we began…experimenting."

"Experimenting?" asked Slukez.

"Yeah, we began to find ways to seal our gas inside these air-tight containers so that we could sniff out one that had high dosages of methane and sulfur. When we did, we set these containers on fire and waited until they exploded. It was at that time when my family gained its name in demolitions."

"That sounds…vile."

"But it's effective _and _both methane and sulfur produce energy. That's why when our family has to deal with legal issues, we tell people that we energize certain parts of the community with our gas and since methane is a key factor in compost and animal waste…we decided to run a little manure operation."

"…Huh…"

"Count I thought you said this guy was a professional! All I see is some fat stinky ogre-Drakel freak who can't keep his bowels shut! If you think--"

Abrick yelped when Khlarsht chucked a blue bomb at his feet, which caused him to jump up into the air to avoid getting his legs blown off. He wasn't sure what was in the bomb, but it gave off a foul odor and increased the heat within the temple.

"That's just one of my minor bombs. Imagine what my other ones can do."

"Understand Slukez and Abrick, that no matter how stinky and lazy and stupid this creature may seem he's a genius when it comes to explosives…and the digestive track I suppose."

Khlarsht laughed heartily and said, "You got that right! Do you want another TrigX500 or the JoustFM? Or maybe you'd like to try out my new Blaster Cheese-Bomb?"

"What's the Blaster Cheese-Bomb's blast radius?"

"About a mile."

"Fine, I'll take a couple of those." said Claussim.

"Just curious, what components are inside this Cheese-Bomb?"

"I ate a whole bunch of those chewy cheesy brains and when I started pooping into one of the manure bags, it had a bunch of yellow gooey stuff inside that looked like cheese so I decided--"

"That's good enough."

* * *

Back in the forests of Darkovia, Blargazn and Gref were groaning and rolling their heads back and forth, trying to figure out what was going on. Their vision was blurred and they had no idea that they had been dragged into a cave and had their hands tied to stalactites on the roof of the cave. It was very dark and wet, but the alpha werewolves could see a small amount of day…nightlife outside.

"Ergh…what the hell?" asked Blargazn, trying to move his hands.

His vision suddenly came into full view and he realized he was stuck inside the cave alongside his friend Gref. Gref was also conscious and aware of what was going on, but there was nothing either of them could do. Blargazn even tried to bite through the material that was wrapped around his hands, but his head couldn't reach that far up.

"What just happened?" groaned Gref.

Blargazn sighed heavily before he said, "I think they got us buddy. Looks like those hybrids managed to capture us."

"That's great. That's just great!"

Gref started grunting and swearing as he tried to break through the restraints with massive effort, but it did no good and his wrist began to turn red. Gref and Blargazn suddenly gasped when they saw two sets of red eyes glaring at them not far from where they stood. It was Vorshk and Yulil.

"Let us go you stinking hybrids!" demanded Blargazn.

"Yeah, I'm gonna release a giant burly werewolf so he can claw my face off. That makes perfect sense." said Vorshk flatly.

"Why'd you even capture us?! There's an all-out battle going on not even half a mile from where we are and you decide that now's the perfect time to try and interrogate us?" asked Gref.

"Think about it canine. There's 5000 Lycans in that squabble outside; you really think they're gonna miss two alpha werewolves when's there's another thousand outside?" said Yulil.

"…That's true."

"It's kinda hard to miss a noisome bright yellow Lycan such as myself you know. I'm pretty sure my commander is gonna realize my disappearance."

Vorshk laughed. "I doubt that."

"RRRRRAAAAHHH!! TUGIS IS A WEREWOLF!!"

Vorshk turned around and sighed heavily when he saw Tugis still stomping around with the werewolf skin donned over his head.

"Tugis what the hell are you doing?"

"Tugis is not Tugis! Tugis is werewolf now! RRRAAAHHHH!!!"

"Gimme that!" said Vorshk, snatching the skin off Tugis' face and revealing himself.

"Awww…you never let Tugis have any fun!" whined Tugis, folding his arms.

"Just be glad I got some werewolves for you to play with."

Tugis glanced past Vorshk and spotted the two alpha werewolves who were tied to the stalactites. He smiled widely and approached the two Lycans.

"Can Tugis eat them?" asked Tugis, who started sitting down like a dog and began to wag his tail left and right.

"I dunno. You know how the 3rd Division never clean themselves and I don't want you swallowing those nasty germs. Besides, look at how big he is; he'll give you indigestion."

Tugis laughed and said, "Tugis still wants to try…"

"If you really want to, but don't be surprised if you end up having pneumonia or diarrhea later in the day."

Tugis laughed evilly and started drooling all over himself, unable to control all the saliva pouring out of his mouth.

"I'll leave you guys alone now. Don't want to get any brain fragments in my fur!" said Vorshk, walking away.

Gref cocked his eyebrow. "Brain fragments?"

Blargazn and Gref stared at the twitchy werepyre who was still sitting on the ground breathing heavily and drooling constantly.

"I take it you're not a nice guy?" asked Gref.

Tugis laughed evilly again. "Why does everyone say that? What makes people think that Tugis is such a bad werepyre? Tugis isn't bad; Tugis isn't mean. Tugis is a nice guy! Nice werepyre Tugis is! All Tugis wants to do is play is all!! DON'T YOU WANT TO PLAY WITH TUGIS?!!!?!"

It wasn't that Tugis was menacing, but he just had this face that creeped everyone out, especially when he smiled. Then again, when Tugis was in a good mood, he liked to "play" with anyone he could find. When he was in a bad mood he…well, there's no need to figure out what Tugis would do if he got angry.

"Kinda hard to play when we're tied up like this, so maybe you should rip off these restraints."

"HEH HEH HEH HEH!! Tugis is no fool! Crazy yes, but fool no. Master doesn't want bad Lycans to ruin his plans. He wants everything to go as plan or-or he won't be happy. So Tugis' friends want Tugis to interrogate you Lycans for more…brain knowledge."

"Like I'd seriously tell you hybrids--"

Tugis suddenly jammed his hand into Blargazn's solar plexus, nearly crushing it and making him shout in pain. Any deeper and his whole arm would've gone through his torso, revealing his viscera.

"This is fun! Isn't it Lycan?"

Tugis suddenly sniffed the air twice and backed away from Blargazn, growling to himself and shaking his head.

"Vorshk was right! You Lycans are stinky! Stinky, stinky, Lycans taste no good! No good for Tugis' tummy!"

Blargazn smirked. "And people wonder why we don't take showers!"

"SHUT UP YELLOW BAD-BREATH!!"

Tugis snapped his fingers and said, "Hey, that's it! Yellow Bad-Breath! That's your name! That's the name for the stinky yellow Lycan with stinky breath! You…you must be Stinky Green-Breath!"

"How come I get the crappy nickname?"

"Because when you exhale, green gas comes out your mouth."

"…Oh." said Gref.

"So tell Tugis, what is Stinky Green-Breath's Were-King planning?"

"It doesn't matter what you do to me Tugis. You should know by now that alpha werewolves such as ourselves won't give in to your demands…no matter how much you torture us. I guess you're gonna have to kill us."

Tugis chuckled evilly to himself and put that wicked smile on his face again. But this time, it wasn't a childish happy smile. It was a devilish menacing smile.

"It is wise that Yellow Bad-Breath and Stinky Green-Breath tell Tugis what Tugis wants to know or else Tugis won't be happy. Tugis is being a very good werepyre now because Tugis wishes to respect his Master's orders. Don't think that Tugis has any problem tearing out your eyeballs…jamming Tugis' claws into your eye sockets…and skull-fucking you to death."

That was one of the main cues that Tugis was angry and agitated; he swore. Tugis stood up and started to laugh as he slowly approached the two malodorous werewolves, waiting to tear them to shreds. But at the last second, Tugis flared his nostrils and caught wind of this wonderful fragrance.

"What…what's that…that smell?? IT SMELLS WONDERFUL!! Not at all like Yellow Bad-Breath or Stinky Green-Breath! Tugis has to find it! Tugis has to find it now!!"

And so, Tugis stretched his wings and flew away from Blargazn and Gref and arrived near the cave entrance, spotting a dark blue werewolf who was tied up with her hands behind her back.

"No…this-this can't be right. The smell can't be coming from a Lycan!"

Tugis walked over to the werewolf and deeply inhaled her fur, stunned that she smelled amazing. Like berries and brown sugar or perhaps some type of cider. Or maybe it was all three combined into one magnificent scent. Either way, Tugis was attracted to the scent…attracted to the werewolf.

"IT IS YOU!! You're the reason why Tugis has this wonderful smell in Tugis' nostrils! Tugis had no idea that Lycans could smell this good! Tell Tugis your name! Tell Tugis why you smell so good!"

The werewolf wasn't sure what was going on, but she decided that this werepyre was somewhat friendly, so she might as well comply with him.

"Jazpher."

Tugis laughed in a playful tone. "Jazpher is her name! Tell Tugis Jazpher, why do you smell so sweet? Why is Tugis attracted your scent?"

"Maybe because I actually bother taking baths, unlike everyone else."

"Good for you! Good for Jazpher! It's good that Jazpher smells nice because Tugis likes nice smells! Yes he does!"

"Is that so…?"

"Yes! You…you smell so riveting that Tugis just wants to…"

Tugis suddenly opened up his mouth and began to lick Jazpher like crazy, spreading all of his slobber on her face and drenching her fur in spit. Tugis thought she smelled so good that she would probably taste the same as well.

"Ohhhh, you taste sweet too!"

"Uh…yeah. Look, could you let me go?"

"Does Jazpher like Tugis?"

Jazpher felt extremely uncomfortably. She was instructed by the Were-King to kill the enemy, not get captured and licked by the enemy. She wasn't sure of what to do at the moment, but perhaps if she made this werepyre feel like he was special or of great value to her, then maybe she could manipulate him into letting her go.

"You're a lot friendlier than most werepyres I've met. I guess that's something."

"Yay! Someone thinks Tugis is nice and not a mean old werepyre who likes to rip off flesh for enjoyment!" said Tugis, hopping up and down.

"Oh! Oh! Oh! Tugis hasn't even shown you Tugis' special talents yet!"

"Like what?"

"Tugis can burp his ABC's!! See watch!"

Tugis inhaled loudly and started burping the ABC's.

"A-B-C-D-E--"

"Okay! I get it! Now, if you could just let me go then maybe we could play some more?"

"Of course Tugis can let Jazpher go!" said Tugis, untying some of the restraints.

But then, Tugis suddenly realized something about Jazpher. She wanted to get free. Why would Jazpher want to get away so much unless she was planning on leaving Tugis and/or killing him?

"…Why does sweet smelling Lycan want to get away from Tugis so much?"

Tugis sniffed his armpits and groaned. "Does Tugis stink too much?"

"No, no it's not that--"

"Then why does nice Lycan want to get away from-from nice werepyre like Tugis? What did Tugis do?!!?"

"Nothing! Don't get upset--"

Tugis suddenly smiled widely again and looked at Jazpher.

"Now Tugis understands. HEH HEH!! You were trying to trick Tugis now, weren't you? But your plan didn't work. Jazpher's plan failed! Your plan failed Jazpher!"

Tugis laughed mischievously and rubbed his hands together, plotting various gruesome activities in his mind.

"Now…what shall Tugis do to you?" said Tugis, slowly walking towards Jazpher with drool coming out of his mouth.

* * *

Not too long later, Vorshk and his band of werepyres came back to the cave to check up on Jazpher. But they only found Tugis lying on his back licking all the blood off his face.

"Tugis what happened to the werewolf we captured?"

"Mmm! Mmm! Jazpher didn't know any information about Were-King, so Tugis take care of Jazpher for you Vorshk."

"What do you mean took care of her?"

Tugis belched loudly and an eyeball flew out of his mouth, landing at Vorshk's feet.

"What should Tugis do about Yellow Bad-Breath and Stinky Green-Breath?"

"We got that covered. I'm pretty sure you know what the word castrate means by now, right?"

Tugis cocked an eyebrow and scratched his head.

"Tugis doesn't know what that means…"

**To be continued…**


	15. The Battle of Razmik Canyon, part 3

The Battle of Razmik Canyon, part 3

Howndst was looking into the dark eyes of his target, who was bleeding profusely from his torso. After severing his partner's head, he and Twarzy cornered the young werepyre in brown and stabbed him. Howndst slowly took out the blade and stabbed him in his chin, making an exit wound through the back of his head. He was dead.

"Whew! It ain't easy being a Lycan is it Howndst?" asked Twarzy.

"I've had better days." he responded.

The two Lycan warriors turned around and noticed that no one was there and the whole army mysteriously vanished.

"Where the hell is everybody?" asked Twarzy.

"I believe we diverted off the main path. This canyon is full of crevices that lead to dead ends, caves, and armies full of monsters."

"I can handle monsters. Just as long as we don't run into any diretooths, I'm perfectly fine with fighting monsters."

"We better get back to the army before Thrasher puts our balls in a vise."

"Screw Thrasher; what's Harkst gonna do?"

Howndst scoffed. "Please. I doubt Harkst even knows what a vise is. He thinks just cause he's got the heart of a bull and the voice of a drill sergeant, he's prime material and the almighty Omega. In reality, he's just a boastful mutt only seeking power for himself and he doesn't care who he abuses in the process."

"I mean, it's not that I'm scared of the guy, but I'd prefer getting into an argument with Thrasher as opposed to Harkst. At least Thrasher is _somewhat_ friendly."

"Right. Well, let's just get back to the pack."

"How?"

"I told you: Harkst has the stinkiest feet out of every Lycan warrior I've met! You can literally smell them several miles away! Just take a huge whiff and you'll get a faint odor in your nostrils."

Twarzy stuck his nose high into the air and inhaled deeply, before coughing violently and plugging his nose.

"Oh, yeah! I can definitely smell his feet from here!"

"Yeah. So let's go join the pack."

* * *

After walking through the canyon for nearly a half-hour, stepping over countless werepyre and werewolf bodies, Twarzy and Howndst still hadn't found their squad, let alone their army yet. And it was getting way too quiet. The two must've drifted far off from the army because now, even the faint battle cries and screams were gradually disappearing and even worse, a mysterious fog was appearing out of nowhere.

"You better get your nose re-checked Howndst. We're even farther from the clan than we were before! Are you sure we're going the right way?"

"Hey, you smell it too. There is NO other werewolf that I know of who has feet that stink that bad. Unless there's another creature with stinky feet—"

Just as Howndst finished talking, a large werepyre stomped onto the ground, leaving grimy footprints in the mud and dirt. The werepyre was wearing a blue t-shirt and black pants, but his shirt had several yellow blotches everywhere that looked like stains. The same thing went for his pants and fur; they all had brown and yellow stains everywhere…and he smelled funky.

"Who's this guy? Another sergeant for Wolfwing and his cronies?" asked Twarzy.

"My name is Ullerf, but a lot of my friends just call me Stink-Ball, for obvious reasons." said the werepyre.

"Why, cause you stink?" asked Twarzy, in a somewhat sarcastic tone.

"No, cause he smells like cider and flowers."

The werepyre sniffed his armpits and groaned.

"No I don't. I got the name Stink-Ball because I smell like a jock strap stuffed inside cheese! Lot of werepyres don't like the smell, so I wound up getting kicked out of my clan and now, I work as a freelancer. Lucky for me, I found the smart-ass werewolf everyone's been talkin' about!"

"If your tactic is using your foul B.O. to try and faze us, it isn't going to work." said Howndst.

"What?"

"A lot of us Lycans don't give a damn when it comes to personal hygiene. Hell. I myself haven't bathed in over two weeks nor have I bothered to brush my teeth. Same thing goes for Twarzy here."

"Yeah, we even have a squad whose sole purpose is to have bad breath and B.O. just so they can gross out the vampires."

"…You cannot be serious." muttered Ullerf, extremely aggravated.

"Yep. And don't even bother farting on me; that ain't gonna work either. I was stuck inside a flame dragon's cloacae for over a half hour until the dragon shat me out."

"Point is, my friend here's got no problem with stinky smells. That means you."

(Damn! Now what am I gonna do?) thought Ullerf.

"Hey, that's okay. Since I roll around in really disgusting stuff and call it a bath, a large portion of my body has become sticky as well, attracting all sorts of germs and other things."

"What's your point?" asked Twarzy.

Ullerf took out two swords and laughed evilly.

"Now I know you've seen any monster hold two weapons at once, but have you seen a monster hold four…without even four limbs?"

"What?"

Ullerf took out another two swords and tossed them into the air…catching one of them with his tail.

"What the…"

Ullerf back flipped and caught his fourth sword with his left foot, standing only on one foot. Amazingly, he looked very balanced, like a trained unicyclist.

Ullerf laughed again and said, "Try me now!"

"Huh…two swords against four eh?"

"This should be entertaining."

Howndst and Twarzy charged towards the noisome werepyre and lashed their swords at him. Ullerf back-flipped once again and landed on his hands, thrashing his foot and tail at Twarzy and Howndst. Their swords clashed loudly and sparks flew off of them, landing on the ground and making it sparkle like glitter. No matter how weird this battle seemed, Ullerf was very smart with his tactics. Fighting with both his feet and hands, and even his tail, did have its advantages. Howndst tried to stab Ullerf in his right leg, but he back flipped again and started fighting with his hands, slashing Howndst on his left arm and cutting down to the muscle. Ullerf was about to kill Howndst, but Twarzy intervened and slashed his sword at Ullerf's arm. Lucky for Ullerf, he back flipped once more and dodged the hit.

"Stop moving so I can slit your throat!"

"Hmm…maybe this would be easier for you guys if I didn't have my weapons."

"That would work. I thought you werepyres don't carry weapons in the first—"

Ullerf threw his weapons into the air and charged towards Twarzy and Howndst. He started off by lashing his claws at Howndst several times over, leaving several scars and damaging his eye. Disoriented, Howndst was unable to do anything. So Ullerf jump-kicked Howndst into the wall of the canyon and knocked him away. After that, he went over to Twarzy and began to work on him, relentlessly pummeling his body into the dust. Ullerf punched Twarzy seven times, parried two of his attacks, stomped on his foot and kicked his sword out of his hand. After that, Ullerf kicked Twarzy three times and uppercutted him, launching his body into the air. When he was done with his little performance, Ullerf back flipped four times and caught the swords he threw into the air, going back into his fighting stance.

"Wow…for a stinky little werepyre you sure know how to lay down a beatin'." Twarzy admitted.

Ullerf laughed evilly and said, "Your move." while pointing to them with his foot.

Twarzy and Howndst began to pace back and forth, looking at Ullerf for any secret weakness that he gave away. Even if it was just a minor faulty, any weakness Ullerf had would lead to his downfall if Howndst and his partner found the proper way to exploit it. Then suddenly, Howndst found it. Every eight seconds he stood up, he shifted a little to the left or right and quickly caught himself before he fell down. Ullerf was balanced, but it was physically impossible to be 100% prone 100% of the time. Even though it was a small and barely noticeable weakness, they could still find a way to use it against him.

Howndst smiled and ran to Ullerf, attacking him ruthlessly even though Ullerf blocked all of his attacks. Like he figured, Ullerf back flipped and stood on his hands, fighting Howndst with his feet once more. Howndst counted in his mind as he attacked Ullerf, because it would determine the next time Ullerf would back flip again.

(6…7…) thought Howndst.

"TWARZY!!" screamed Howndst.

Ullerf back flipped just as Howndst swiped his sword at his throat, missing him by a mere few millimeters. Howndst ducked and Twarzy leap-frogged over his body, his sword aimed for Ullerf's head. Twarzy lunged his sword down like a battle axe and sliced across Ullerf's back, leaving a huge gash that was at least a foot long. Ullerf yowled loudly and grabbed his back, amazed that the one blow went that deep into his back. It was a good thing Ullerf looked up afterwards because if he didn't, the swords he tossed into the air would've impaled him through the skull. Ullerf caught the swords and got back into his fighter stance, growling gutturally at his werewolf foes.

"You're gonna pay for that!" he growled.

Suddenly, a sword fell from the sky (the fourth one Ullerf didn't catch) and stabbed Ullerf in the foot.

"Huh?"

Ullerf glanced down and started howling and screaming, taking out the sword and hopping up and down on one foot, blowing on his wounded foot and whimpering at the pain. Sure, Howndst and Twarzy could've ambushed Ullerf while he was hopping, but they were too busy chuckling under their breath. Once Ullerf cooled down, he got back into his fighter stance and charged towards the Lycan duo. Howndst began to fight first, letting Twarzy get in a few swipes if he noticed that he was in danger, but except for that, Howndst was doing most of the work. However, Ullerf ducked when both Twarzy and Howndst swiped their swords at him and stabbed both Lycans in the leg. Both of them fell down and Ullerf jumped into the air, stomping down onto their chests. Pinned by the hybrid creature's feet, there was nothing they could do but struggle to get free. Ullerf smiled deviously and stabbed Howndst in the chest, gradually descending the blade further into his cavity.

"NOO!!" shouted Twarzy.

Twarzy punched Ullerf in the groin and grabbed the sword in his tail's grasp, then swiped it at his left arm and cut it in half. Howndst was free, but Ullerf was still alive. Ullerf screamed in pain, but it was quickly ceased when Twarzy also managed to stab him in the side, destroying his kidney in the process. Twarzy dropped his sword and slowly pulled out the one in his side, ready to kill Twarzy with it. But at the last second, Howndst pulled out the severed arm and sword from his chest and swiped it at Ullerf's torso, cutting all the way through. Then he sliced through his neck and dropped the sword, breathing heavily. The last thing Ullerf saw was a blurred vision of the canyon ahead of him before his body fell apart into multiple pieces. His upper torso slid off his legs and when it landed on the ground, his head rolled away. Howndst cut him in half and decapitated him with his own sword.

"You okay?" asked Howndst, panting.

"Should be asking you the same question."

"I'm-I'm good. Lucky me his sword wasn't made of silver…"

"Didn't you say there was no other werewolf that had feet as stinky as Harkst's?" asked Twarzy, getting off the ground.

"Yeah…that's right."

"Maybe Wolfwing sent this guy as a diversion so our scents would get knocked out of whack. I mean, the guy did smell horrible."

Howndst limped over to Ullerf's lower body and lifted up its right leg, sniffing the sole deeply. He coughed and hacked for a few seconds, but it wasn't stinky enough.

"Nope, it ain't this guy. His feet smell nowhere near as bad as Harkst's."

"So what the hell are we smelling?"

"I don't know. Let's just continue; hopefully we'll find some help further down the line."

* * *

For some odd reason, the canyon was getting foggier with each step the duo took. Yet, the odor of Harkst's feet wouldn't escape their nostrils, indicating they had to be close to their clan. Unless…there was another werepyre with feet that reeked worse than Ullerf's…

"If my nose is correct, then Harkst and our clan should be just a couple of yards ahead of us."

"Good. Traveling in a spooky foggy crevice can get scary at times. It's not easy to scare me, but I swear if I see one diretooth, I'm gonna shit myself."

"…You don't wear trousers Twarzy…" Howndst pointed out.

The Lycans turned to their left when they heard loud slurping and sucking inside a large cave exactly the couple of yards Howndst predicted the smell was originating from.

"They must be inside that cave." said Twarzy.

Twarzy and Howndst peeked inside the cave only to be greeted by a large fist punching them in the face, hurling their bodies into the canyon wall. The two Lycans got up and shook their heads, looking at the assailant that punched them.

"Hey! Go find your own damn cave!"

Twarzy and Howndst saw two alpha werewolves standing right next to them, snorting and eating burnt meat. Both of them had dark red fur, bright orange eyes and jet black armor. They looked exactly like any normal alpha werewolf but they just seemed…hotter.

"Now where have I seen you guys before…?" asked Howndst to himself.

Both Lycans groaned in unison and rolled their eyes.

"You don't know us?!" said the left werewolf.

"He don't know us." said the right one.

"I know that bro."

"I know you know; that's why I'm tellin' you because you don't know, you know bro?"

"…No, I don't know."

"Exactly." said the right werewolf, smiling.

Both of them laughed and introduced themselves.

"We're FireWeres!" they said in unison.

"Elemental Lycans eh? I suppose they could be useful to us Howndst."

Howndst walked over to the fire Lycans who had their mouths open and got a whiff of their breath, flaring his nostrils every couple of seconds.

"What, does my breath stink?"

"Obviously. Why do you think he wasn't so close to your maw?"

"Shut up Flare! Your breath smells just as bad as mine!"

"No it doesn't."

"Yes it does."

"No it doesn't."

"Yes it does!"

"No it doesn't."

"Hey, Lycan! Whose breath smells worse?" asked the FireWeres in unison.

"It's not that your breath is foul—well it is foul—but for some reason…"

Howndst caught wind of their breath again and took a few steps back, growling gutturally.

"Your breath reeks of decaying werewolves…"

Flare and his brother took a bite of their mystery meat and started chewing on it noisily, smacking their lips and slobbering all over the place.

"Yeah, so?"

"By any chance, are you guys—"

"Cannibals? Yep!" they said, interrupting Twarzy.

"…I was gonna say twins…"

"What? Oh yeah, we're that too. This is Flare and I'm—"

Howndst tackled Flare like a football player and pinned him to the ground, planting his Lycan Slasher at his throat.

"—Pyro. Um, is there a problem here?"

Twarzy held his sword to Pyro's throat as well, ready to kill the cannibalistic Lycans.

"Cannibalism is the same thing as treason in the Were-King's eyes! You give me one good reason why I shouldn't rip out your throat and use your own innards as a garrote!"

"C'mon man! Cut a FireWere some slack! It's not—OW!—it's not like we're diretooths!"

"Yeah, man! Ease up off my bro!"

Howndst growled again and got off of Flare, letting him stand back up.

"Look, when we were kids…our parents were killed in a vampire raid—"

"Yeah, I know the feeling." interrupted Howndst.

"…and we had to leave our home to go look for food ourselves. So one day, there's this blizzard goin' on and we get caught in the middle of it. So there we were, freezing our nether regions off—"

"Too much, too much. Don't say that again; I don't wanna picture getting frostbite in my scrotum." said Twarzy, shutting his eyes.

"Can you let me finish?! So we hid in a cave and stayed there for several days, but the cold was just getting to us. Being of fire element, my bro and I hate the cold. So we practically starved to death until some werewolf comes in and sees us. The werewolf didn't have any food with him and we were really, really, really, REALLY hungry…"

"Bro, calm down. You're frothing at the mouth again." warned Pyro.

Everytime Flare said "really", he crept closer to Howndst as though he were ready to attack him, frothing at the mouth with a deranged look on his face. He backed up and wiped the foam from his mouth.

"Point is, we were starving, we smelled flesh, we ate it. At the time, we didn't give a damn that it was a werewolf we were eating. We just wanted to survive…even if it meant losing our sanity and become cannibals in the process."

"Even if we let you live, how do we know you guys won't chomp on our backs the minute we turn around?"

"Well we know that you Lycans have been fighting all the hybrids with wings for the last hour or so and perhaps…we could help you."

"In return for…?"

"Just as long as we have food and get to kick some vampire ass! Ever since our parents died we haven't seen one so I'd love to get some well deserved payback!"

"Okay, I suppose you guys can join our league of Lycans…for now. But understand that if the Were-King finds either of you eating a werewolf you'll be sentenced to death immediately…and we'll wound up getting executed too for keeping this secret from him. Sorry, but you're gonna have to find something else to eat."

"But why?!" asked Pyro.

"Think about it! If I could smell Lycan on your breath that fast, think about all the other Lycans that could smell it too."

"Oh, right. I guess we can eat these dead werepyres."

"There's still one thing I don't understand. What was that smell that reminds us of Harkst's and his stinky toes?" asked Twarzy.

Flare chuckled and grabbed Pyro by his right leg, yanking it high into the air and causing him to tumble on his back.

"Flare?! What the hell?!" complained Pyro.

"Here, take a whiff of these babies! Pyro hasn't scrubbed his feet in decades!" laughed Flare.

Howndst brought his nose to Pyro's sole and took a quick sniff, surprised at how fetid his toes smelled.

"Oh my God. There's actually a Lycan out there whose feet reek worse than Harkst's!" said Howndst with disbelief.

"So besides having stinky toes and being cannibals, what other attributes do you FireWeres possess?"

"Our breath is so hot that if we exhale hard enough your fur will catch on fire."

Pyro walked over to Twarzy and exhaled right into his nostrils, compelling Twarzy to back up and plug his nose.

"Phew!! Does that explain the strong odor too?"

Twarzy snorted a few times and Pyro and Flare began to snicker when they saw steam come out of Twarzy's nose. He then sneezed and little puffs of fire shot out.

"See? I just burned your nose hair!"

"And while we're at it, how's 'bout I show you what else we can do?" said Flare.

"Flare I don't think you should—"

Flare grunted and passed gas with great force, sighing contently afterwards. FireWeres are so hot that when they passed gas or belched out loud, smoke came out…which was exactly what happened when Flare farted. Pyro and Twarzy started coughing from the stench while Howndst stood absolutely still, blinking nonchalantly.

"This smell—"

Twarzy stopped to cough twice.

"This smell doesn't bother you at all Howndst?"

"Until I get trapped in another dragon's cloacae, no stink this side of Lore fazes me anymore. You guys have any other talents? Something useful for combat?"

"Err…when we spit, sometimes lava comes out. And if we try hard enough, we can breathe fire like a dragon!" said Pyro.

"All right then. Let's get back to finding our clan before Harkst goes crazy and tries to use us as cannon fodder."

"But you haven't even seen how we use our skills for pranking purposes yet!"

Flare nudged Twarzy on the shoulder.

"Hey, Lycan…"

"What?"

Flare chuckled and turned around. "Pull my tail…"

"Don't you mean 'Pull-my-Finger'?"

"No, this is nothing like that! I promise!"

Flare winked at his brother and smiled devilishly as Twarzy grabbed his tail.

"Better go find some nose plugs for Twarzy…" sighed Howndst, already knowing what Flare was about to do.


	16. The Battle of Razmik Canyon, part 4

The Battle of Razmik Canyon, part 4

About an hour had passed now ever since the epic Battle of Razmik Canyon had began…and it already left its share of bodies and stains that couldn't be forgotten. Everyone had underestimated their foes for exactly the same reasons. Neither Lycans nor werepyres had any idea that numbers would be their best advantage. It turns out that the werepyres assumed the Lycans would be overwhelmed by their numbers, but that was a huge gaffe. The werewolves thought that just because their opponents' numbers were great, they still had enough spirit and feral wrath within them to overcome their enemy. Unfortunately, the werewolves got a little too cocky and tried to take on more than they could chew—literally. Their numbers soon began to deplete consecutively, without warning. Somewhere in the middle of the confusion, both sides retreated momentarily to revise a new strategy that was better than their original so hopefully, no one had to worry about making huge mistakes once again. All the werepyres flew far away from the fighting and all of the werewolves ran in the opposite direction, wary of what trick the hybrids might've had up their sleeves. They were busy gathering the wounded and dead, patching up their wounds and making plans before the werepyres finished before them. However, they weren't the only ones.

Having wings did have its advantages. The werepyres could easily fly to high altitude and spy upon the Lycans without them knowing. Too bad there were no clouds in the sky, because it was very easy for the Lycans to spot a shadow or large entity flying above them and when they were spotted, they were shot out of the sky like flies buzzing their way to the swatter. Of course, some werepyres had keen hearing and were excellent on stealth, so a few of them could scout the skies and listen in on Thrasher and his army's conversations. In order to prevent themselves from being spotted by the werepyres on land, the werewolves dug a huge ditch in-between the chasm and hid in it, all huddled together. Obviously, not all soldiers could fit inside, but whenever they received incoming arrows fired from their counterpart, it made a great hiding spot. But when you have over 57 huge, burly, sweaty Lycans all huddled together in one spot, you're gonna hear lots and lots of bickering.

"HEY! Put your sword down; it's piercing my spine!"

"Get your butt outta my face!"

"Get your face outta my butt!"

"YOU'RE PEEING ON MY FOOT!!"

"If you're gonna use the bathroom, make sure you pick up afterwards!"

"You're crushing my hand!"

"What stinks??"

"Shut your maw! Your breath smells like the inside of a minotaur's bowels!"

"Who keeps breaking wind?!"

"ARGH!! You all smell so horrible!"

"GET OFF MY TAIL!!!"

"Don't you dare throw up on my face!"

…And so on and so forth. It was rather humorous how they were all placed in, being squashed together like that, but they were feeling pain sort to speak. After witnessing one of the Lycans get shot in the head with an arrow while having a bowel movement, everyone decided to use the bathroom in the pit or behind a very, very thick tree. So unfortunately, the werewolves had to stew in their own filth—literally. Sure, many of the Lycans didn't mind odors, but when you're surrounded by hundreds of stinky animals who just defecated behind you, the smell does tend to become nauseating and noticeable. But not everyone was complaining, such as Krazat and a few other members on their side. Krazat was patrolling the ditch and peering over the dirt to see if any wolves with wings were spying on them. Meanwhile, Harkst was busy devouring heart after heart from the enemies he had slain.

"Shouldn't you be up here spying on the werepyres Harkst?" asked Krazat.

The burly wolf responded by snarling at the dark blue warrior and returned to ripping away his juicy, bloody hearts. Krazat growled gutturally and continued to look out into the horizon when Renz-Furr showed up, complaining as always.

"Yeah, this was a smart idea! Let's bury ourselves inside a really narrow ditch for several hours and wait until the enemy attacks while we're busy stewing in our own muck."

"Fine, if you want to leave, then get out and face the werepyres yourself."

"I'm arrogant, not suicidal."

"The Were-King loves suicidal Lycans. It shows we're not afraid of going down without a fight."

"So how come we're not out there taking on the werepyres head-on?"

"Because if all Lycans were suicidal, then our whole race would've been extinct centuries ago. Besides, if we were suicidal, we might as well be considered Diretooths."

"Yeah, but Diretooths are a lot stronger than we are so—"

"That's not the point! If all the Diretooths tried to rush all of the werewolf warriors and beta werewolves and alpha werewolves all at one time, they'd all die right then and there no matter how strong they were. It doesn't matter how strong you are; unless you're immortal or some form of deity, if you take on more than you can chew all at once, you're gonna die. That's why we're standing in this stink-hole, so we can figure out a better tactic at destroying the werepyre army. If we rush them all at once, we're gonna die."

"Hmm…good point."

Renz-Furr and Krazat sighed and continued to look forward to see if any werepyres were spying on their army.

"I just wish we were in a place that's more appealing to my olfactory senses. I didn't realize how bad Princkl's feet smelled until I was lying under them for a half hour."

"What'd you expect? He's part of the 3rd division."

"I expected his feet not to smell like Limburger cheese and an acidragon's toenails."

"I'm pretty sure your feet don't smell very pleasant either."

"Why?"

"You're standing in Daxxil's dung pile."

Renz-Furr groaned loudly and hopped out of the pile of werewolf poop, only to land into a fresh warm puddle of Lycan urine.

"God, it's gonna take forever to get these clean!!"

"Why don't be like a cat and lick it clean?"

"Okay."

Renz-Furr sat down and licked his urine and poop infested soles, only to groan loudly when the strong taste of urine went into his mouth.

"UGH!! That tastes horrible! Why'd you tell me to do that?!"

"Cause I knew you'd be stupid enough to." smiled Krazat.

The blue wolf jumped out of the pit full of Lycans and surreptitiously walked behind a field of large trees where more Lycans were hiding and planning an effective strategy. Behind these trees were Thrasher and some of the other senior Lycans, such as Daxxil and Al-Kringwol and Fliowtoes. Al-Kringwol was sitting on the ground scratching his soles with his large claws.

"Damn these itchy soles of mine!" he muttered.

"Get off the ground Kringwol; we need to formulate another strategy before the werepyres do first."

Krazat decided to join in the conversation and met up with Thrasher and the other commanders.

"Ah, Krazat. I assume you've also come up here to complain about our current predicament?" said Al-Kringwol.

"I'm a soldier sir. I already knew some of my 'working' conditions wouldn't be the best in the world."

"Well your friend Renz-Furr can't keep his mouth shut! I know the smell isn't pleasant, but that doesn't mean he has to bitch every 30 seconds!! I swear, if the Were-King hadn't declared death for treason, I'd run up to that yellow whiner and rip his tongue out where he stood."

"I came up here to see how we're progressing."

"It's none of your concern. Just get back to the pit and continue surveying for now." said Thrasher.

"Honestly, I came up here to get away from Renz-Furr's bitching and because I've got nothing better to do. I'd love to get back in the action sir."

"If you really must know, we're trying to figure out a way to flank the enemy. There are caves and secret tunnels within this canyon and if we find the right one that leads right behind the army, then we can easily take 'em all out and even the numbers, then attack them head on."

"So why don't we start searching for the caves now when they're not looking?"

"Like I said, we don't know where these caves lead and if we go through the wrong one, we might end up facing a pack of dormant Diretooths."

Thrasher's stomach gurgled and the dominant black alpha werewolf groaned and leaned against the tree, breathing loud enough for his exhales to become audible.

"You all right sir?" asked Daxxil.

"Yeah, the adrenalin's just actin' up. You also have to remember Krazat that Irrovs and Orpatatz have their little squad of scouts patrolling the skies this very second trying to listen to each and every word we're saying."

"Don't worry about that. I'm certain Howndst and I can take care of them."

Thrasher groaned again and his stomach growled once more.

"Therein lies the problem. We haven't been able to locate Howndst or Twarzy since we retreated."

"You don't think he's—"

"Of course not. Someone as smart and agile as Howndst would be able to survive that battle. Until we find him, we're just gonna have to wait here."

"This canyon's huge! He could be anywhere by now and some horrible abomination could be devouring his soul or—"

Thrasher's stomach growled violently at him again and the jet black wolf squatted down with his legs spread, panting heavily. Suddenly, he shut his eyes and started breaking sputtering wind. When he finished, two large piles of werewolf scat squeezed out his anus and plopped on the tree behind him, making the alpha werewolf sigh with relief.

"Sorry, my bowels were actin' up there."

"Uh…you okay there Thrasher?" asked Krazat.

"Yeah it's just…"

Thrasher grunted hard and squeezed out another lump of dung before farting again for a while. Krazat took two steps back and plugged his nose.

"It's just the adrenaline acting up."

"Adrenaline sir?"

"If there's one thing I've learned from my father, it's that fear and adrenaline are the best laxatives. No matter how empty your bowels are, if you are deathly afraid of something or have adrenaline coursing through your veins and arteries, it'll feel like you gotta take a massive shit."

"…Really?"

"Yeah, his father does the same thing. Sometimes right after battle, the Were-King will run behind a tree and take this gigantic shit. I guess that's where his son got that from." said Al-Kringwol.

"I take it the Were-King's scat doesn't smell any sweeter?" asked Krazat.

Al-Kringwol and Daxxil chuckled. "No! No, it does not!!"

"Anyway, what were you talking about?" asked Thrasher, letting out another rancid fart.

"…What if Howndst and Twarzy are killed on their way back over here or get lost?"

"I'm sure there's another Lycan here who can swat a few Werepyres out of the sky just as good as you."

"I'm a pretty good shot."

Thrasher sniffed the air a couple of times and caught wind of a werepyre flapping his wings very faintly in the sky.

"Then I think you should start taking aim, because someone's listening in on our conversation right now."

Krazat looked up into the sky and heard light rustling in the tree branches before watching two dead leaves fall to the ground. One of the werepyres was hiding within the field of dead leaves in the tree Thrasher was defecating on. Krazat slowly grabbed a Feral LycanBow and placed two arrows into the weapon, shutting his left eye and looking into the trees. Krazat moved the bow to the left a few centimeters before he released the arrows and let them fly into the trees. Krazat heard the arrows pierce the skin and flesh of a creature and before he knew it, a large werepyre wearing a brown shirt came pummeling out of the tree with two arrows in his torso.

"Wasn't this hybrid one of Orpatatz's guys?"

"Yes…so you know that Orpatatz or his captains are nearby."

Thrasher finished up with his defecation and stood back up, grabbing a Lycan Slasher and LycanBow.

"We're gonna have to take 'em all out before we can get anywhere."

"Gotcha."

* * *

Meanwhile, the situation with Blargazn and Gref hadn't gotten any better. Vorshk and Yulil had threatened to sever their testicles with their swords and Tugis was near close to doing it for them. Of course, Tugis was too busy ripping away at a Lycan's carcass to pay attention.

"SO JUICCCCYYY!! OH, THIS LYCAN IS RICH WITH FLESH!!!" shouted Tugis.

The maniacal werepyre laughed demonically with blood pouring out of his mouth before he kneeled down and continued to bite away at the deceased alpha werewolf. Tugis dug deep into his back and violently ripped out the heart in the process, severing the arteries and veins with his teeth.

"Are you gonna share that?" asked Bjovak.

"HEY! Does the werepyre with stinky feet want to see what happens when he interrupts Tugis during feeding time?!"

Like always, Tugis couldn't help but flash random, demonic looking wide smiles at people. It wasn't something you'd go up against when that same smile is coated with blood and flesh so Bjovak slowly backed away from Tugis and he tossed the heart into his mouth, swallowing it whole and gulping hard enough for the lump to be visible in his throat.

"You're gonna let a four year old werepyre bully you around?" asked Wylite-Drakkson's ghost.

"See, you're already dead, so you have nothing to fear. And he's not four years old; no four year old wears the skin from a Lycan's head and walks around pretending he's a werewolf." said Bjovak.

"What's so bad about him? He just wants to play! He's like a giant, hairy, maniacal baby."

"His term of playing is nowhere near what you assume it is…"

Elsewhere, Vorshk, Yulil and Byric were inside the cave waiting to castrate Blargazn and Gref.

"Let's make this as simple as possible: Either you tell us what your commander is plotting, or you're returning to your families without any ounce of dignity left in you. Now what's it gonna be fleabags?" asked Byric.

"…You know we Lycans aren't going to betray someone like the Were-King just like you guys wouldn't be able to betray Wolfwing." said Blargazn.

"All right, cut 'em off!"

Both werewolves winced in fear as Yulil approached them with the sword and Blargazn suddenly got a wondrous, but totally unsanitary, idea of how to escape.

"WAIT A SECOND!! Wait a second!"

"You already gave us a final answer—"

"I gotta take a shit." said Blargazn, haphazardly.

Vorshk and the others cocked an eyebrow. "What?"

"I doubt the last thing you guys want is having a big, burly werewolf such as myself release his bowels after his testes are severed, so how's about I go now and save you the trouble of cleaning up?"

Yulil chuckled. "You're just fooling us so you'll be able to stall longer!"

"It's a canyon Yulil, and they're far away from any Lycan as far as we know. We might as well respect his last wish." said Byric.

"But he's just—"

"Okay then, don't release them. Just remember that we he does loosen his colon, you're gonna have to sit here and choke on the stench with your eyes watering and your nose hairs are burning. I, for one, am not fond of smelling defecation."

"Neither am I! But don't worry, you can just clean up afterwards." said Vorshk, smiling widely.

Vorshk and Byric walked out of the cave and left Blargazn, Gref, and Yulil alone.

"I know you're trying to trick me, but it's not going to work so you might as well—"

A cacophonous burst of gas erupted from Blargazn's rectum and Yulil quickly backed away from the smell when a few turds began to glide their way out. Blargazn sighed heavily before he grunted again and more gas and defecate squirted out of his ass. Yulil, disgusted by the noise, sight and smell, backed away and ran out of the cave until he finished. Blargazn sighed heavily and muttered,

"Saved by the bowels."

"Great, you bought us a solid ten minutes. What the hell are we supposed to do by then?!" whispered Gref.

"Easy. I just dislocate my wrist and yank it through the restraints."

Blargazn exhaled twice before he inhaled sharply and jerked his wrist sideways, popping it out of its socket and dislocating it. The loud pop Gref heard made him wince in pain. Blargazn started grunting very hard and ruthlessly scratched at the ropes with his claw, but he was once again unsuccessful. With no other option, Blargazn twisted and squeezed his wrist through the ropes to get free. The ropes tore away through his fur and skin like intense rug burn. Blargazn ignored the pain and continued to squeeze his hand through the ropes, despite the fact he was scraping away a good portion of his skin. Suddenly, Blargazn shouted out loud and his hand was free. A huge chunk of his skin was gone and his hand was bleeding, but he didn't care because he was free and his wounds would heal within a few hours. Blargazn weakly untied the other rope and fell to the floor of the cave.

"You're insane Blargazn."

"No, I'm just stinky." said Blargazn, flashing Gref a smile.

The yellow burly wolf climbed up the wall of the cave and bit off Gref's restraints so he too, was free.

"Okay, now all we have to do is get back to Thrasher and the gang before anyone spots us."

"That's gonna be fairly hard; our scents stick out like a dirty hyena."

"This means we'll have to tread lightly Blargazn."

"…I'll go first."

Blargazn took a few steps forward until he arrived to the entrance of the cave and saw Yulil with his back turned, plugging his nose to block out the smell of Blargazn's poop. Blargazn approached the oblivious werepyre and opened up his claws, lashing at the werepyre from behind. Before Yulil could scream in pain, Gref ran up behind him and grabbed him by the muzzle, violently twisting his head sideways and breaking his neck. Yulil fell to the ground and Gref and Blargazn quickly hid his body in the cave. They looked left and then right to see if the coast was clear. Blargazn gestured Gref to go right and the two alpha werewolves did so. However, when they turned a corner in the canyon, they saw Tugis still noisily gnawing away on the Lycan's corpse. Blargazn and Gref slowly backed away and hid behind the canyon wall.

"We should go the other way."

**To be continued…**


	17. The Battle of Razmik Canyon, part 5

The Battle of Razmik Canyon, part 5

Howndst, Twarzy, Pyro and Flare were currently busy walking through the Razmik Canyon passage, desperately trying to find their squad before they ran into General Irrovs or any of his lieutenants…or Tugis. Pyro and Flare were busy making jokes and wise-cracks with each other whilst Twarzy and Howndst were thinking and talking on their feet.

"Howndst how are we going to find Harkst and his squad before those hybrids show up? The only guide we had was Harkst's grimy paws and now that we know they're coming from this guy…" said Twarzy, pointing at Pyro.

"…we're at a loss here."

Howndst sighed and sat down on a log to ponder some more about their current predicament. They could always just wait there until Harkst and the battalion found them, but there was the chance of facing the wrath from heavily armored werepyres. Even though they had two burly FireWeres with them, they wouldn't stand a chance against 200 werepyres all at once. They could always continue to walk down the path to find the Lycans, but that would run risk of the same thing: more werepyres.

"Do you know of any Lycans that have a formidable odor we could sniff out?"

"No. The Were-King's bowel movements are very…strong but he's not in this battle."

"What about his son?"

"His fur has this odd, crusty odor to it, but nothing we could detect from here."

Howndst sighed and pressed his fingers against his forehead.

"What about you FireWeres?"

"Huh?"

"You guys said you have several special talents. Is one of them the gift of detect smells from miles away?"

"Uh, we don't do good with smells."

"That's right. We'd be better off trying to find the heat source of various creatures than sniffing them out."

"Oh yeah Pyro. Remember when we found that one fire knight sleeping under a tree?"

"You mean that one we beheaded after he tried to steal our Zard berries?"

Pyro threw his head back and laughed. "Yeah, that guy!!"

"Sure I remember him! He was supposed to be promoted the next day to lieutenant!"

"Right. Wasn't his father Sir Isaac Farkle?"

"OOH! I can still taste his liver on my tongue!" he growled.

Pyro licked his slobbery lips and laughed evilly. "All this talk of juicy organs is making me hungry…"

"Before either of you even consider thinking what I believe you're thinking, let's go over the scenario again. We're at war. Hundreds if not thousands of Lycans have lost their lives in the past few weeks protecting our King. Right now, we're lost inside one of the most deadly areas inside of Darkovia with an army of 10,000 werepyres gunning for any Lycans they can find. If they sneak up behind us before we find the general of our army, Thrasher, we will perish. So maybe you should stop re-thinking past events and bring your head into our current dilemma, don't you think?"

Pyro and Flare stared at Howndst and realized he was right and they needed to keep their minds focused.

"You're right, you're right. We're sorry."

"We just get so—"

"—sidetracked all the time."

"Good. Now…you were saying something about detecting heat signatures?"

"Oh, that's right! My brother and I can find any valuable heat source with our other senses. So if any Lycan you know of is a FireWere, we'll be able to track his signal and follow it."

"Well…there's an alpha werewolf I know of with terrible flatulence. Although it's rather unorthodox, I'm pretty sure you should be able to detect his heat signature."

Pyro chuckled. "You want us to follow the heat coming out of a werewolf's ass?"

"Got a better idea? If you washed your feet every once in a while, then maybe I could find my squad on my own. But your cheesy soles are clouding my sense of smell so I've no way of finding our squad leader."

"I get it! My feet smell!! You don't have to rub it in. Is there any other way to find any of your friends?"

"Why? You can't stand flatus?"

"It isn't really that I can't stand it. It just seems a little…"

"Unsanitary?"

"No, my brother farts all the time and I can deal with that."

"HEY!!"

"So can I find heat another way?"

"I don't know; you tell me. You are the ones who find heat sources. If a bunch of werewolves were bunched up together and it created a lot of heat, you could find that. Otherwise, you're gonna have to sniff out my friend's flatulence."

"Great. Except for my brother, the closest heat source is…that way." said Pyro, pointing to a path to the right.

"Okay. Let's go Twarzy!"

Howndst, Pyro and Flare began to walk forward and stepped on all of the large leaves, hearing them crunch underneath their feet. Howndst turned around and was surprised when he didn't see Twarzy following them.

"Twarzy?"

Howndst took a few steps back and turned around, looking for any traces of Twarzy. But he had simply vanished into thin air.

"Hello?"

Howndst heard faint gagging from above and looked up to see a large werepyre choking Twarzy in a dead tree in mid-air. Twarzy had dropped his slasher in the confusion and was having trouble clawing at the werepyre's face. Howndst took out his LycanBow and placed an arrow on it, aiming for the werepyre's head. The werepyre grunted questionably and glanced at Howndst, shortly before he let go of the arrow. The arrow whizzed through the air and impacted the werepyre right in between the eyes. The werepyre let go of Twarzy and fell out of the tree. Twarzy quickly scurried across the ground and grabbed his Lycan Slasher.

"Where the hell did he come from?!"

"I don't know but we got a bigger problem than that. Look!" shouted Flare, pointing to the sky.

The four werewolves looked into the dark sky and noticed it was filled with silhouettes of giant bat wings. And since there were no bats in the area, the only reasonable explanation was werepyres. A lot of werepyres at that. Some of them were just as skinny as or skinnier than Howndst, while others were big and burlier than Harkst and Thrasher. They all wore different colored shirts and dark brown pants that stopped at their ankles. All of them had gray fur except for the sergeant, whose fur was emerald green. The giant hairy hybrids stopped flapping their wings and landed on their feet with a loud thump, lifting some leaves into the air. The four Lycans stared at their enemy combatants' red eyes, hearing them growl gutturally.

"Hmm…two FireWeres and two soldiers. Not exactly what I was expecting, but I'm sure your deaths should suffice for Wolfwing. It's been a very long time since I've delivered a FireWere's head on a sliver platter."

"And it's still going to be a very long time."

"You really think you'll be able to sever one of our heads? Bah!! We could melt those weapons of yours with our tongues!" said Pyro.

"That's why we all carry Misery Daggers and Vartai Blades."

Pyro sighed. "Damnit!"

"Where would werepyres get an arsenal of weapons like those?" asked Howndst.

"It just so happens my squad ran into a lost horde of Vartai hunters who were transporting cargo to their superiors. It was our luck that it was all ice weapons." said the sergeant.

"Hey aren't you um, Sergeant Dr'asch? The werepyre who was responsible for the Charcoal Hills Massacre?"

"Didn't that result in over 79 Dracomancer casualties?"

"Yes it did. And then we burnt all their bodies and scattered their ashes across the hills, hence the name Charcoal Hills."

"So we could grill meat right on top of the grass. AWESOME!!" shouted Flare.

Howndst sighed.

"Now…since we obviously overpower you by numbers and strength, I'll make a deal with you dogs: You tell us what your general is planning and we'll let you go. Otherwise, you can expect us to deliver your scalps to him. Sound like a deal?"

"There isn't anything you can bribe us with to make us betray our leader. Compared to what the Were-King will do to us for treason, losing my scalp sounds like a very good bargain." said Howndst.

Dr'asch sighed heavily and shook his head. "So be it."

The second Dr'asch finished his sentence, Howndst's ear twitched once he heard the wind whistling loudly. Someone just fired an arrow and it was gunning right for him. The green wolf rolled out of the way and watched as a silver-tipped arrow impaled the dirt. Had Howndst remained where he stood, he'd be dead or critically, if not mortally, wounded. Howndst responded by taking an arrow and shooting it at Dr'asch's head. He quickly jerked his head sideways and avoided the arrow, which couldn't have been said the same for the soldier behind him. Dr'asch and his soldiers yelled their battle cries and charged for the four Lycans.

"This should be interesting." said Flare.

Both FireWeres ran over to the group of werepyres and got into the fight as well, contributing to their downfall. Flare snarled and opened up his claws while Pyro kicked a werepyre in the throat and yanked his arms around his back as though he were about to place handcuffs on him. Stunned, Flare proceeded to bring his claws down and lash open the werepyre's viscera. Both of the FireWeres chuckled and shouted, "YEAH!" while high-fiving each other with one hand. Meanwhile, Twarzy was busy yelping and dodging arrows made of silver like crazy. He ducked under one arrow and stood up to engage in a short swordfight with a burly werepyre, before dodging another long arrow. After they clashed their weapons together four times, the werepyre kicked Twarzy on the leg and he fell to his left knee. As the werepyre raised his weapon, prepared to kill Twarzy, the werewolf looked down and saw the arrow with a silver tip still lying in the dirt. Twarzy broke the arrow in half and stabbed the werepyre in the throat with it. Even though werepyres were weakened by silver as easily as werewolves, it still posed as a fatal blow if it makes contact with any vital organs. Twarzy just stabbed the werepyre in the Adam's apple. He didn't grunt or groan or even moan weakly; he just slouched over and fell down, bleeding profusely from the neck. Twarzy picked his Slasher back up and continued to fight the assailants. He came into contact with a mobile and swift werepyre with two Vartai Blades in his hands and charged towards Twarzy. The first thing he did was shout out loud and slash his sword with Twarzy's in an attempt to cut through his head. Twarzy looked at the werepyre's red eyes as he growled at him and revealed a set of drooling, yellow sharp teeth. Twarzy tried to push against the werepyre's blades, but he was too strong for him and was pushing him back. Twarzy was slowly moving backwards with his toenails grinding against the dirt and knew that his foe would eventually break him. It was at the last second that Twarzy's friend Howndst stepped in, stabbing the werepyre in the back. He groaned loudly and stopped fighting Twarzy to yank the sword out of his back. It only took him two seconds to do so, but it was two seconds too many. Twarzy stabbed the werepyre in the chest before taking out his Slasher and slicing open his left kidney.

"Thanks bud!"

"Just be glad he didn't have a silver dagger to throw at you or you'd be a goner."

Twarzy thrusted his body at Howndst and knocked him down just as a silver-tipped arrow flew in his direction. Howndst looked at the arrow lying in the dirt before looking back at his war buddy.

"Even?"

"Even."

Meanwhile, Pyro and Flare were busy fighting off the assailants with their bare claws. Pyro was slashing his claws against another werepyre's claws like they were swords, twirling his arms around like a helicopter's blades. It was as though both of them were cat-fighting since they only used their claws and arms. As they were doing so, both creatures grabbed the others' arms and pulled them out of socket, dislocating them. Both of them snarled with pain simultaneously and stopped fighting to snap them back in place. After they did that, they started fighting again.

Rushing over to the Dr'asch, Howndst reached his blade back and thrust it forward impaling the creature through the torso and pinning him to the canyon wall as helpless as a fly in a spider web. The demon tried desperately to shake Howndst off, but the wolf merely gave a cold grin as he carefully split his blade along the werepyre's chest cavity, cutting through his organs as if they were mere pieces of paper, finally stopping only after the foe's heart was split in two, blood pouring from their body and splattering the ground. It was only then that Howndst withdrew his blade and allowed the werepyre to fall to the ground, nothing more than a corpse. At the same time Howndst was cutting through Dr'asch's chest, Pyro found himself being cornered by two different werepyres, both with a look of hunger in their beady eyes.

"Heh..." he muttered, "They think they can take me..."

Without wasting a second he leapt up, kicking himself into a back flip off the chest of the nearest werepyre and the second he landed, he took a deep breath and blew a massive gout of fire at the two demons, watching as the intense flames quickly incinerated them, leaving only piles of ashes in their wake. At the same time, Flare was busy trying to fend off two other of the ghouls, both determined to sink their teeth into his flesh.

"If you guys want a meal.... you're gonna have to earn it!!!"

Taking a cue from Pyro, Flare flipped up onto the left werepyres shoulders and, before it could make a move, dug his claws into its neck and pulled up, ripping the head from the body in a gruesome display, standing up on the decapitated demon's shoulders for a few seconds before he jumped into the air and spiked down the severed head at the skull of the still-standing werepyre, watching as it collided and crushed in the fiend's head. Both bodies swayed for a few moments before toppling over backwards right as Flare landed back on his feet.

"Looks like a match point to me." Flare quipped, hiding a small laugh.

But Twarzy wasn't faring as well against his own werepyre. Still stunned from saving Howndst's life, one of the werepyres had leapt onto him and was trying to rip into his neck. But the tough wolf wasn't about to go down without a fight and he grabbed fiercely onto the sides of the demon's head, preventing it from lunging down at him. Growling angrily, he pushed against the werepyre's head, rotating it sharply to the right as if trying to snap it's neck.

"I…am…not…your…DINNER!!! YOU AREN'T TAKING ME DOWN!!!"

With a fierce push, Twarzy succeeded in breaking the werepyre's neck, a loud CRACK telling him he'd done the job and he let the former fiend fall next to him as he panted, gasping to get some air, exhausted from the effort. It was then he noticed Howndst still staring at the remnants of the werepyre he'd stabbed.

"HOWNDST!! HOWNDST!!!"

As Howndst looked down at the remains of the werepyre he'd bisected, the scent of the spilled blood filling his nostrils, the wolf felt a new feeling inside of him…one of pure primal rage….and he roared out to his partners.

"PYRO, FLARE!!! TAKE TWARZY AND GET OUTTA HERE!! I'LL TAKE THE LAST 5 OUT!!!"

"But what about yo---" Flare started to ask, but a sharp glare from Howndst told him that his mind was made up and with a small nod, he and Pyro lifted Twarzy up and helped him away from the war ground and Howndst twirled his sword in his hands, a cold grin on his face as he called out to the remaining foes, gathering their attention

"COME ONE, COME ALL! I'M READY!!"

The werepyres charged him, prepared to make Howndst their newest meal....

The first one never even got two steps towards him before Howndst had pulled out his bow and arrow and shot 3 rapid arrows into its brain, pinning it against a tree, never to rise again. Quickly dropping his LycanBow, Howndst picked up his sword and swung it upwards, tearing through a werepyre and splitting him from crotch to cranium. Pushing the two halves aside, he beckoned for the third creature to come at him. The werepyre did so and soon found itself beheaded, courtesy of a slash to the neck from his Lycan Slasher. The fourth werepyre tried to run off to recover, but a single arrow to the heart sent it sprawling to the ground, now just a shell of a body. But as Howndst looked at the last remained werepyre, he merely smiled and motioned for the demon to charge him. The creature let out a growl before it leapt at him, eager to rip the wolf's head off in vengeance for its fallen allies.

"You never learn, do you?" Howndst growled before he leapt at the werepyre at the same time....and soon the sound of a sickening slash echoed throughout....

As the werepyre and Howndst landed, they both looked at each other for a few seconds before the creature's chest started to bleed, the blade having gone through the middle of his body, before his upper torso began to slide off, exposing the organs and entrails inside. The last words it heard before the cold grasp of death took him were 5 whispered words from his killer....

"Goodnight.... and welcome to Hell...."

It was only then that Howndst noticed Twarzy, Flare, and Pyro staring at him in shock. Without even a single word, the wolf resheathed his sword, picked back up his LycanBow, and walked back onto the path.

"We should get going..." he said softly.

"Err…sure thing Howndst." said Twarzy.

As the other three followed him, they were all left wondering what had come over Howndst just then....it was like he was a whole new wolf.

**To be continued...**


	18. The Battle of Razmik Canyon, part 6

The Battle of Razmik Canyon, Part 6

The Canyon was filled with the sound of fluids slapping against a wall and loud sniffing coming from a werepyre's snout. Byric and the others eventually found Yulil's body and noticed that Blargazn and Gref had disappeared and were on the run. The werepyres realized that the fleabags would regroup with another battalion of werewolves or their squad, which meant that their position would be compromised. Already losing Yulil, who was quickly rising through the ranks, they couldn't afford to lose another werepyre right now without severely ruining their chances of survival or battle success. While Vorshk, Bjovak, and a few others went in one direction, Byric decided to team up with Tugis, who was busy sniffing the dirt and giggling to himself eerily, as always. Byric was busy staring at the wall of the canyon, contemplating what he's gone through so far. He tried to see if he could see some improbably reflection on the face of the wall, or maybe a hole that contained all the answers to the meaning of his life. Maybe he wanted to focus and concentrate on his mission, set aside all of those rebellious thoughts. He was serving a good king, a king who treated him with respect, a king who brought him into his little "posse" with no wariness. He was also the king who was responsible for his family's slaughter. And yet…Byric seemed fairly nonchalant about it. Maybe he was staring at the wall because he was peeing on it, and didn't have anything else to look at. No one really knew what went on through Byric's mind, but all he knew was that he had to empty his bladder, and he didn't hesitate in doing so.

"Still picking up their scent Tugis?"

Tugis sniffed the dirt deeply before lifting his head up and smiling.

"YES!! Yes, Yellow Bad-Breath has-has left his trail! Left his smelly trail indeed!"

"Good." said Byric, zipping up his trousers.

"When we find Yellow Bad-Breath and Stinky Green-Breath, can Tugis eat them?"

"You remember what Vorshk said. Those guys will give you indigestion, more or less a severe case of food poisoning. The last think we need are werepyres like you getting a stomach ache in the middle of a battle."

"But Tugis wants to try something new! Master always tells Tugis to eat new food so…so why can't Tugis eat them?!"

"You wouldn't want to upset your Master by disobeying his orders, which will ultimately make you weak later on, do you?"

Tugis lowered his head and whined. "No…" he whispered.

"Okay then."

"Bur Master never said Tugis couldn't play with the smelly Lycans did he?!!"

Byric grinned devilishly. "Indeed he didn't."

Tugis started hopping into the air, shouting with joy once more upon hearing the news. Like always, Tugis would get bored easily and it didn't take long for the child-like hybrid to find another "friend" to play with. In some cases, Tugis would wear out his toy within a few hours. In others, minutes. Tugis didn't know why he was so playfully all the time, but it made him happy and full of ecstasy. Without all of his toys, Tugis would spend the rest of his days babbling to himself, inevitably going insane. …Well, less sane.

"YAY!!! TUGIS GETS TO PLAY AGAIN!!"

"Try to stay focused Tugis. We still have to find 'Yellow Bad-Breath' and 'Stinky Green-Breath' before they warn their Were-King about our position and regroup. So I need you to pick up on their trail again so we don't get lost in this canyon. If you're lucky, we'll run into more Lycans we can play with it, and maybe ones small enough for you to eat."

"Oh, goody!! Tugis is a hungry werepyre—very, very hungry Lycan with wings!"

"Last I recall you were wolfing down a deceased werewolf about a half-hour ago."

Tugis fell to the ground and started laughing hysterically, rolling around and flapping his wings and giggling so uncontrollably that he was almost crying. It wasn't until his laughter began to die down that Byric suddenly knew he used the phrase "wolfing down" and Tugis took it as an obvious pun, because they were surrounded by wolves and had wolf blood in their genes.

"Byric makes such funny jokes! Have you ever thought of becoming a jester for Master Wolfwing?"

"That is not my line of work Tugis. I'm not one who has the kind of personality to withstand comical humor as my profession."

"Then what does Byric want to do with his life?"

Byric cocked an eyebrow. "What?"

"What do you want to do with your life?"

Byric couldn't help but stare at Tugis, who was busy sitting on the ground like a cute puppy, wagging his tail and smiling, looking innocent enough to be considered a flower. A twisted, contorted corpse flower that performed unhygienic acts and had no problem bathing in his enemies organs, but a flower nonetheless. He was trying to understand if Tugis meant that question literally, or if it was simply rhetorical. Byric felt like throwing the answer back at him, but he already knew Tugis would respond with the words "Play" or "Eat" like he always did. He felt envious of Tugis; he seemed so happy, no matter what situation he was in. He could still remember the time when both of them were outnumbered by a platoon of Vartai hunters, and instead of helping Byric defeat them, he merely disemboweled a dead foe and started juggling his organs, whistling a tune happily to himself. Sometimes Byric thought he could walk in Tugis' shoes just to see what they felt like. The only reason why he hadn't yet is because he knew he would never get those shoes off if he did. Byric sighed and rubbed his head.

"…I just want everything to be equivalent, that's all. I'm just a gnat trying to solve the world's problems that will most likely only get worse in the process for creatures who could care less about my well being."

Tugis cocked his head sideways. "And Byric says he doesn't want to be a jester!"

"What does that mean?"

"If no one cares about Byric's well being, then why do it? Has Byric found no purpose in life anymore?"

Byric put his tongue in his cheek. Right then, he hated Tugis. How a simply conversation of catching and killing two werewolves turned into Tugis interrogating Byric was beyond him. In all honesty, Byric couldn't answer. After he joined Wolfwing's family and became one of his children, he didn't really do anything else. He was just a soldier, unlike any other. He was different from the others, but all of them served under the same master and worked for the same cause. Every now and then, Byric would question his journeys and quests, but eventually found a way to make the situation seem fair in his eyes.

"I do it because…"

Byric wanted to explain his predicament to Tugis without discombobulating his mind.

"I do it because no one else will, Tugis."

"OH! So it's like…like a hobby for-for Byric yeah?"

"More of a responsibility, but if you want to put it that way, yes."

In reality, Byric couldn't spend his life cracking jokes and acting like a fool as he wore a crazy outfit complete with a hat that jingled in an obnoxious manner. He felt more comfortable with a bloody sword in one hand and his bare, flesh reeking claws on the other. So what if he felt serene killing werewolves and vampires and other opposing foes for a living? Tugis was happy when he played around and experimented with flesh; at least Byric had no trouble admitting he was 15 times saner than Tugis was. Although he never liked comparing his behavior to other werepyres.

"What do you say we stop this cutthroat interrogation and go find some Lycans for you to play with?"

"YAAAAAAAAAAY!!!"

* * *

After sniffing the trail for another half-hour, Tugis and Byric arrived to a small four-way intersection deep in the canyon. Tugis stopped sniffing the ground and perked his ears up after hearing a few squishy footsteps in the distance. Judging by the sound of it, there were only a few hostiles in the area and the footsteps were soft. At least they didn't have to worry about a behemoth or plodd attacking them and crushing their bones into dust. And if a diretooth was in the area, it would've attacked them instantly so that terrible thought was out of their minds as well.

"Which way Tugis? Right or left?"

"LEFT!! That's where Yellow Bad-Breath ran off too!"

Byric took the left intersection and began to walk down the dirt path, making Tugis raise an eyebrow.

"Why is Byric walking that way? Didn't you listen to Tugis' directions?!"

"You said left, right?"

"Right? Tugis said left! Left he said!"

"But I'm walking left Tugis."

As Byric continued to go down the path, he was greeted with a bellow that might've blown a BURP into the air as though it had just been caught up in a hurricane. Byric groaned loudly and turned around, quickly continuing back to Tugis. Tugis stifled a couple of giggles once he saw Byric. He wasn't sure what happened, but Byric was covered in saliva from head to toe and he had to wipe all the grime off his face so he could see. Byric wasn't sure what the creature that roared at him was, but its mouth was full of spit and clearly sounded like it was ten times the size of him. Perhaps the monster was just some mutated bird or an oversized groggle that wondered away from its home and resided in Razmik Canyon now. His fight wasn't with a groggle though, and he needed to stay focused.

"…I thought you told me left?"

"TUGIS DID!! Tugis did say to go left; why didn't you listen to Tugis?!"

"Which _left_ did you mean?"

"That left!"

"Tugis, that's right."

"No, that's the other left!"

Byric sighed exasperatedly and shook himself dry, launching all the saliva off his fur and clothes.

"Whatever you say Tugis. I just don't want to be led into the mouth of some C-Rex."

Tugis and Byric began to walk down the right pathway of the canyon, where the footsteps of the presumed werewolf was growing louder and louder each second. Before long, Tugis had the scent of the werewolf warrior in his snout and he began to become excited, seconds away from having fresh Lycan meat bubbling in his maw, juicy and rich with blood. Byric and Tugis found their enemy, but it wasn't Blargazn or Gref. It was just a regular, low-level werewolf warrior, looking like the rest of the pawns. Same armor, same fur color, same weapons; he looked like a toy soldier fresh off the assembly line. The only noticeable difference between him and the other warriors, was his eyes, which were sky blue instead of dark yellow. Judging by his height and bulk, Byric assumed the werewolf was at most eighteen years old. Minimal, he could be thirteen. Just those two features alone made Byric think this Lycan wasn't cut out for war. He should be back at the Were-King's hideout, working as a medical officer and treating the wounded. Hell, he should've just stayed home and cured himself of his lycanthropy. Anything would've been a greater alternative as opposed to fighting in this war, let alone this battle.

"What's your name, pup?"

"I am no pup! I am Malhowl, second warrior in chief Fliowtoes' squadron! And you, yes you must be…Byric?"

Byric nodded. "That's right."

Malhowl sneered. "What's a nerd like you doing working for a creature like Wolfwing?"

Byric ignored Malhowl's comment and his blue nose wiggled.

"What's a pup like you doing working for an abomination like the Were-King?" retorted Byric, adding emphasis on "pup".

"Hmph! At least I'm no cross-breed with wings stuck on my back! What, did you and Wolfwing find some permanent adhesive, rip off the wings of some vampire and use their wings on yourselves? Let's face it: you guys look exactly like us, only with colorful snouts, wings and two fangs you can't keep in your mouths properly."

"HI!!!" shouted Tugis, waving to Malhowl.

Malhowl and Byric looked at Tugis and raised an eyebrow.

"Is it really wise to call me a pup when you're hauling around a five year old?"

"TUGIS IS NOT FIVE!!! Tugis is…uh…"

Tugis opened up his palms and started counting his fingers in his head.

"This many!" said Tugis, holding up all his fingers.

Malhowl snickered.

"Let's get over the name-calling and trying to establish which race is superior and get to the main point."

"What's that, hybrid?"

"I'm going to kill you."

"I'm flustered, really I am. But I'm just not intimidated by a nerd and some monster who doesn't even know how old he is. Besides, one of you doesn't even have a weapon and the one that does has spent more time 'analyzing' and 'observing' it, rather than actually using it like a true warrior."

"And you, pup, are an adolescent jackass with a thick skull and a furnace for a mouth. Tell me, how old are you?"

"38."

"Now answer me without lying through your teeth."

Malhowl grumbled to himself and swore under his breath.

"Sixteen." he huffed.

"And have you ever killed—murdered, to be more specific—anything before?"

"Well my family was overrun by a small fleet of clawgs two years ago—"

"But you haven't actually killed anyone in cold blood, have you?"

"…No."

"What does your father do for a living? Knight?"

"Blacksmith."

"What of your mother?"

"She's training under the Paladin Order."

"So you were never trained to fight for this war, except by your alpha werewolf leader Fliowtoes. Every other defense you know of was self-taught."

"That's right."

"Yet somehow, you think you're capable of defeating two werepyres—both of whom weigh at least 128 pounds than you—when you yourself haven't murdered anyone or anything, nor have you received the proper training. And you don't find yourself acting cavalier in any way?"

"No, I don't."

Byric sighed and pressed his fingers against his forehead.

"You should go now pup."

"I have a sworn duty to serve the Were-King with valiance and honor. Besides, if I ran away now, what do you think the Were-King will do to me?"

"What do you think this _nerd_ and _ten year old_ will do to you if you don't walk away?"

"I'd rather take my chances against you than the Were-King."

"Well, from what you've told me, the only reason why you haven't run away is because you're scared of the Were-King."

"Not true. I like the Were-King, I like his army of Lycans, and I like being a werewolf. I already know what the stakes are; that's why I didn't hesitate to join his ranks. I know there's a chance I won't make it back home tomorrow, but that's what honor is. I'd rather die in battle, than of old age, regretting the decision I made that could've saved fellow werewolves."

"There's no shame in running, pup."

"Would you?"

Byric didn't say anything, making Malhowl smile.

"Thought so."

"Just walk away pup. If you go in a different direction, we won't kill you."

"We won't?!" whined Tugis, his ears drooping.

"I can't do that hybrid."

Byric shrugged. "So be it."

Malhowl opened his mouth and let out a fierce scream, charging towards Tugis and Byric with his Lycan Slasher held high in the air with both arms. Byric simply took a few steps forward and waited for the werewolf to attack. When he got close enough, Byric side-stepped the adolescent werewolf and dodged his attack. Byric elbowed the Lycan in the face before snatching the slasher out of his paws while he was stunned. Malhowl didn't even know his paws were severed off until he looked down and noticed his arms were spewing out blood. He did however, feel claws dig into his vocal cords, shortly before he heard a bloody, squishy tear. Pain was the first thing he felt, shortly before he grew tired and cold. Malhowl jerked his head sideways and saw Byric with blood and some of the flesh from his throat, dripping down his claws. Malhowl didn't even have time to see his Adam's apple lying on the dirt before his soul left his body and his corpse fell face-down on the ground. Byric sighed calmly and kept Malhowl's Lycan Slasher.

"That was weird of you."

"What's weird about it Tugis?"

"Tugis thought that Byric wanted everything to be fair? Surely…killing a young-a young werewolf like Malhowl wasn't fair."

"You heard me. I warned him countless times, and he still challenged me. He knew he wasn't going to survive, but he chose to fight me instead of run away."

Byric shrugged. "I gave him a choice Tugis. Unlike you, who would've just ran up to your opponent and ripped out his liver."

"Mmm…liver…"

"At least I gave this young warrior a chance. I think that's fair, don't you?"

"Tugis guess so. So…now that the feeble Lycan is dead…does that mean Tugis—"

"Yes, yes, you can devour your little morsel."

Tugis hopped onto the corpse and voraciously started ripping him corpse apart.

* * *

Graknat was strolling through the trenches of Razmik Canyon with a small squad of warriors along with him. Graknat was beginning to worry about Blargazn and Gref due to their long disappearance and assumed the worst. Nevertheless, Thrasher gave Graknat the order to go look for him and any other Lycans who were separated in the giant squabble that ensued. So far, they only managed to find one Lycan, Dimsiv. Everyone else was dead or died immediately after they found them lying on the ground.

"Ironic, ain't it?" asked Graknat.

"What is?" asked Dimsiv, running his fingers across his cheek, which was cut open.

"If I recall, you said I would be the first one to go. Yet here we find you, near death and buried under a pile of werepyres."

"I get it. Maybe you're not such a bad warrior after all."

"What happened to Sytrus?"

"He was dragged into one of the caves…"

Dimsiv tried to finish his sentence, but everyone in the squad already knew which road he was going down.

"Okay, um…did you find Blargazn or Gref?"

"I heard…smelled one of them pass by me, but that was after I woke up and realized I was buried under werepyres. I'm not sure where they went, but I get the feeling they were running from something."

"Why didn't you call them for help?" asked Renz-Furr.

"I was barely conscious! And if you can't tell by how strained my voice is, one of the werepyres kicked me in the neck!"

"They do have powerfully big feet." said Shavrez.

"What about Howndst and Twarzy?"

"Haven't seen 'em."

"So we got two warriors and alphas from the 3rd Division missing?"

"Three if you include Sytrus. But like I said—"

"We get it." said Shavrez.

The Lycans resumed walking down the path in search of their fellow werewolf warriors.

"So what have you guys been doing ever since my absence?"

"Resting inside a goddamn cesspool. Whose bright idea was it to have a shitload of Lycans reside inside a trench that was used for a toilet and shelter?"

"Stop complaining Renz-Furr. Would you prefer being in the middle of a war zone with arrows and swords buzzing around your head like bees?" asked Shavrez.

"After what I smelled? Yes!"

"Tactical wise, what have you guys been doing?" rephrased Dimsiv.

"Well, Thrasher believes we'll be able to flank the enemy via caves and tunnels, but the only way we can do so is by killing all of Orpatatz's captains. He has his hybrids patrolling the skies right now, spying on us and if they decide to become hostile and shoot arrows down at us..."

"What are we doing about this?"

Shavrez took out his LycanBow and fired an arrow into the sky. It disappeared into the black shadows and he heard a loud cough. Soon enough, a werepyre wearing a brown shirt came crashing to the ground with an arrow in his face. The werepyre, still alive, tried to stand up and fight off the squadron. Graknat greeted him by severing his head from his shoulders and kicking his corpse aside.

"Pretty much that." said Shavrez.

"I don't suppose you stumbled into Irrovs, have you?"

"Again, if I did, it was when I was lying under that pile of bodies. And before you ask, I haven't seen Orpatatz either."

"In that case, we need to find Howndst, Twarzy, Blargazn, and Gref and eliminate any of Orpatatz's forces. After that, we'll regroup with Thrasher and tell them the skies are clear. By then, he'll have a plan to flank Irrovs' battalion."

"Let's get going." said Dimsiv.

* * *

Byric stopped walking and flared his nostrils. A very strong, unpleasant odor was flowing into his nose. Normally, the werepyre would groan and recoil, but instead, he smiled evilly and growled.

"You smell that?"

"Hey, Tugis does not smell that bad!!!"

"I'm not talking about you. There's a really strong smell of garlic in the air."

"Maybe we're near a…garlic plant?"

"No Tugis, we're not. However, I encountered a ninja werewolf who thrived in the stench of garlic not too long ago. I'm sure he wouldn't be stupid enough to walk around in this canyon alone so…"

Tugis gasped and smiled from ear to ear.

"DOES THIS MEAN TUGIS GETS TO PLAY!!!?" he shouted, frothing at the lips.

"Yes Tugis…you can play."

**To be continued…**


	19. Playing Both Sides

Playing Both Sides

Given his current situation, the werewolf warrior was beginning to think that he should've joined Thrasher and the rest of the Lycans as they headed out to fight all of the werepyres. While all of them were busy killing hybrids left and right, pumped up with adrenaline and testosterone, he was dragging his feet along the ground, circling the same series of shacks that housed all sorts of weapons the Were-King's army used. There were Lycan Slashers, LycanBows, DuaLights, the works. Of course, there were also other weapons that the canines had stolen from other races. Exodus Axes, Fusion Staffs, QuadroScythes, Holy Rage Bows, and more. And the funny thing was werewolves would rarely even go over to the weapons stash to take said weapons along with them. The warrior thought his job was useless, and would've coped with it if he had received a nice supplement of gold or Z-tokens. But no…he was forced to stomp around in his own footsteps night after night after night after night…after night… The werewolf sighed heavily and scratched his right ear, digging out some wax and flicking it against the ground. He heard faint snoring up ahead and saw another brown werewolf warrior sitting in a chair with his chin pressed against his chest. The warrior sighed and shook his friend's shoulder.

"Rakx?"

The warrior continued to snore, his chest puffing in and out each time he inhaled and exhaled.

"Rakx?"

Still no answer. His friend growled in his throat and punched him in the jaw, which made Rakx snort a few times and shake his head in confusion.

"Whuh? What, what is it, Teren?"

"You know you have to stay awake, Rakx. We're supposed to be guarding this weapons stash so the enemy doesn't sneak by and ambush us."

"You really…think that's gonna happen?"

Teren scoffed. "Nah, but you never know…a werepyre could be spying on us from their castle this very minute."

"No, they're not. We've been guarding this position for months now, and no one's even once thought about invading this place."

Teren laughed heartily. "I know! But seriously, you need to stay awake Rakx. For all you know, the Were-King himself could be watching every move we make, waiting for us to slip up so he can snack on our organs for dinner."

"He's the Were-King, not a Diretooth. We're not cannibalistic, feral creatures; you know that."

"Yeah, I know."

"While you're busy lecturing me on my laziness, go check up on Rorst and Stev-kropt. I haven't heard those two bozos crack any jokes for the last ten minutes."

"That's because you've been sleep this entire time. …But I'll go check. You just sit here and keep guard."

Rakx nodded and resumed his guarding duties, waiting for Teren to disappear around the other side of the shack so he was out of his line of sight. Once he was gone, Rakx grinned and shut his eyes so he could catch up on more sleep. Meanwhile, Teren was still dragging his feet along the dirt, trying to figure out what happened to Rorst and Stev-kropt. Now that he thought about it, those two had been quiet for the last several minutes… Perhaps they were slacking off too, resting against the side of the weapons shack sleeping.

"Rorst?" shouted Teren.

There was no answer. All Teren saw was a cute bunny hop out of the bushes and rub its paws against its nose. …A bit out of the ordinary; normally, that bunny would be a Were-Hare or sitting inside another werewolf's growling tummy. Even weirder was that Rorst and Stev-kropt loved to argue over who ate the dark meat first, but the bunny was still there, completely unscathed. They should've been fighting over who ate the bunny by now, unless they were sleeping too. Teren knew something was wrong, but he just couldn't place his paw on it. He did, however, hold up his Lycan Slasher and prepared himself from any incoming enemy attacks.

"Rorst?" he shouted louder.

Now Teren was becoming anxious, desperate to figure out what happened to two of the guards at the outpost. As he started to run around the shack, he gasped and almost swore out loud when he saw that two fellow Lycans had been killed. Rorst was lying in a prostrate position, his lifeless eyes still wide open and a pool of blood growing underneath his corpse. From what Teren could tell, his throat had been slit. Stev-kropt wasn't so lucky either; someone, or something ripped open his chest with their serrated claws, and his heart was partially visible. To add insult to injury, it seemed that someone also took the liberty of impaling Stev-kropt through the groin with a spear—more importantly, a Vampspear. An unknown dark force slammed him against the wall and pinned him down. Teren started panting frantically and turned around to see a vicious vampire lord was the one who had attacked him. Before Teren had time to call out Rakx's name, he was stabbed in the back of the throat, the wedge from the spear protruding through his open mouth. Teren gagged a few times as blood flowed out of his maw and dripped onto the ground before his eyes rolled into the back of his head, and his body was motionless. The vampire lord removed the Vampspear and let the werewolf's body collapse onto the ground.

"Hmph! I thought you Lycans would be smarter than that."

"Yeah, no kidding," said another bloodsucking lord, his claws drenched in red blood.

"I'm surprised that these guys didn't catch wind of us when we entered the premises."

"Guarding the same position for several days can wear you down; these guys obviously weren't prepared."

The other lord nodded. "Right. I sure hope Farken and his squadron know what they're doing."

"That old bat can handle himself, Ezcofx. You and I just need to focus on our primary objective: blowing this weapons stash to hell."

"Okay. I got the bomb ready, but I'm not sure how it works."

The other vampire lord sighed and followed Ezcofx over to the other side of the shack. They arrived at the entrance (as well as Rakx's dead body; he had his neck ravaged by Ezcofx's claws) and stepped inside, looking down at the odd, bright yellow set of explosives compiled together. Ezcofx looked at the weapon and scratched his scalp.

"That's an odd bomb you got there, Abrick. What's it called again?"

"The Blaster Cheese-Bomb. It was made by an explosives expert Count Claussim has had several dealings with in the past. He's a bit…malodorous…but from the demonstrations he gave me, his bombs have potential."

"Great," said Ezcofx, caring very little for the history behind the explosives.

"So how do we arm it?"

Abrick took out a tiny black bag and pulled apart the little rope that secured the contents inside. Then he walked over to the yellow explosive, got down on his knees and poured a small amount of dark brown powder directly onto the slimy material. Afterwards, he tied the tiny bag back up and backed away from the bomb once it began to hiss and bubble, emitting a foul odor in the process. Ezcofx backed away from the bomb and covered his nose.

"What did you put on the bomb?"

"You don't want to know."

"Then what the hell is the bomb made out of for it to smell so foul?"

"That is also information that should remain secret. Enough questions! We gotta get out of here now; that bomb had a mile blast radius and I don't know when it's supposed to go off!"

As Abrick spread his wings and took flight, Ezcofx turned around and looked at the yellowish bomb, which was beginning to bubble loudly and starting to emit a loud, resonating hum. The vampire lord swore under his breath and ran forward a few steps before he stretched out his wings as well and followed behind Abrick as he headed over to a cliff overlooking the weapons shacks. Once they arrived at the ledge, both of them landed and jumped behind a log, shielding their heads to take cover from the impending fireball. The vampires waited for six seconds before the explosion was heard, a deafening noise that made a dragon's roar sound like a BURP squeaking. The vampires opened their eyes upon hearing the bomb detonate and peeked over the log to gaze at the yellowish fireball. Khlarsht was true to his word, and the blast radius of the Blaster Cheese-Bomb was indeed a mile; any closer and the lords would've been caught up in the blast. Both of them sighed heavily before Ezcofx scooted away from the yellowish clouds. For some reason, the smoke and fire that the bomb expelled smelled profoundly of sulfur and…cheese.

"Abrick, is that…cheese I smell?"

"Yes, it is. As I stated before, the creature that Claussim ordered the bomb from is rather vile and fetid, but as you can see, he knows how to make exquisite explosives."

"Good point. Now that the depot is gone and the Lycans in this sector have been vanquished, what's our next mission?"

Abrick shrugged. "Suppose now we head over to Bunyip Lake and assist Lord Farken and his warriors in slaying any were-creatures they come into contact with."

"Okay. Let's head over…there…"

Ezcofx felt something warm blowing on the back of his neck in small puffs. He smelled the air a few times, catching wind of a fierce creature that was standing directly behind him, exhaling its breath onto his neck. Abrick turned around and noticed what the creature was, but before he could attack, Ezcofx began to take action. He jerked his body around and dove forward, narrowly avoiding the creature as it swiped its claws near his head. Abrick ran towards the beast and jumped into the air, preparing to fly past his chest so he could claw through the skin in one swift motion. But whatever the creature was moved much quicker than Abrick did, and bashed its fist into the back of his head, sending his body to the ground in a split second. The vampire coughed a few times and tried to get back up, but before he could, the creature swiped its claws against Abrick's back, tearing through his right wing and penetrating the flesh. Abrick shouted in pain and backed away from the entity, breathing heavily as he broke out in a sweat. Ezcofx ignored his wounded partner and growled gutturally, attempting to attack the monster as well. Unfortunately, his efforts were just as good as Abrick's were, and the creature snarled and swiped its claws at his face. Ezcofx screamed as he went blind in one eye and backed away, collapsing against the log next to Abrick. The wounded vampire lord opened his eye and stared at Abrick, who was shaking uncontrollably and groaning loudly.

"ABRICK!" shouted Ezcofx.

The gray vampire watched in horror as Abrick started to transform into a strange creature. As he convulsed, his pale skin began to turn brown and his wings started to scrunch up. Ezcofx heard a loud ripping noise, as though he were shredding sheets of paper with his claws, before he saw his wings turn light grey and green. Ezcofx's eyes grew wide and he gasped as he watched what used to be a pure, faithful vampire who was in league with Safiria turn into something else…something horrible. Abrick grunted and held his stomach as it gurgled a few times before he screamed and another gushy, tearing noise was heard. A long, thick tail burst out of the vampire lord's hindquarters and curled upwards, still covered in an unknown slimy substance. It also had a few pearly white spikes at the end of it, perfect for using as a spiked club to whack against someone's skull. The pain and gurgling stopped and Abrick stopped convulsing, hastily looking left and right. Then he stood up and looked down at his hands and his brown skin. He started to hyperventilate and turned around to see that his wings had changed and he had a tail.

"What have you done? What did you do to me!" he demanded.

The creature chuckled to itself before finally stepping out of the darkness in the forest. Abrick and Ezcofx grew speechless at their discovery. The creature that attacked them turned out to be an alpha dracowolf. Unlike the regular alpha werewolf, who had a messy, hairy tail, he had a smooth one with spikes on the end. He also had the same wrinkly green and grey wings that Abrick now had, and his fur color wasn't the typical brown or light brown color. It looked much darker, like the color umber or wenge. The alpha dracowolf grinned, showing off his jagged yellow teeth, before he spoke.

"I made you perfect. And soon enough, you will be too." he said with a gruff voice.

Ezcofx looked up at the burly alpha dracowolf as he stared down at him with the same malicious smile. The next thing he knew, he was convulsing just like Abrick was. He knew that it'd only be a matter of time before he transformed into a dracovamp lord…

* * *

The werewolf warrior fell to the ground and held up his Slasher, blocking his head just in time for the vampire warrior to swing his sword down at him, the blade inches away from digging into his flesh.

"Give up…dog breath! You and your hounds can't win this round!" he hissed.

The warrior grunted once the blade moved dangerously close to his face. Then he smiled devilishly as he stared into the bloodsucker's dark eyes. The warrior jolted his body upwards, shaking off the vampire momentarily and giving the warrior enough time to get up and lash his throat open with his claws. As the warrior dropped his Vampire Blade and grabbed his wound with both hands, desperately trying to cease the blood loss, the Lycan stood up and plunged his sword deep into the vampire's abdomen. The vampire let go of the wound when he started to grow weary before coughing up blood and collapsing to the ground. The werewolf warrior removed his blade and started panting as he looked around Bunyip Lake. Twenty-one vampires thought it was smart to try and attack them not only in the center of Darkovia, but in an area heavily populated with all sorts of were-creatures. The werewolf warrior chuckled to himself and shook his head.

"Really now, how dumb can you bloodsuckers get? It doesn't take a scientist to know that if we don't kill you all, those were-hares will!"

Immediately afterwards, a boastful, but brainless vampire warrior charged towards the Lycan, ready to rend him in twain. But since the vampire was fixating more on his anger at the cocky werewolf's attitude, he failed to notice the ravenous were-hare was standing a few feet away from the warrior. While it was busy gnawing away on a bone, the were-hare lifted its head and sniffed the air twice. Once it spotted the vampire, it snarled and began to charge towards him, pouncing on his body and tackling him to the ground. The warrior tried to defend himself from the terrible beast, but all he saw were razor sharp bloody teeth and claws and patches of white fur. He shouted in pain once the bunny infected by lycanthropy lashed at his face and stabbed the beast in its thigh. It did no good, as the hyper aggressive bunny swatted the sword away and started to work its way to the vampire. The were-hare showed no mercy with him and ignored all his wails and cries for help and started to ravage his body with its choppers, ripping through the armor and chest cavity. The werewolf warrior wasn't sure what was happening to the vampire, but he could hear the beast snarling and occasionally slurping up the crimson from its mouth and fur. It only took five seconds before the vampire stopped screaming, and about twenty before the were-hare stopping ripping him to shreds. The Lycan chuckled and walked over to the transformed bunny, paying no attention to the mutilated corpse underneath its feet. As the were-hare started to bite off some of the meat, he petted the white hairy beast on the head a few times.

"Good boy!" he said.

The were-hare responded by slurping some of the dead warrior's skin off his claws and belching. The werewolf warrior walked away from the beast as it had its meal before searching for the rest of Farken's remnants. However, Farken was a safe distance away from all the chaos that had ensued, busy trying to patch up his wounds while maintaining his leadership with the rest of his men, who were beginning to wonder if he was fit for being a vampire lord.

"Sir, what the hell are we supposed to do now?" asked an enraged vampire warrior.

"I told you, we're gonna regroup, patch up our wounds, then go back out there—"

"No, Farken! I do not care how long I've been a vampire or how I am to serve you and cater to your every whim! You are not sending us out there to die Lord Farken! Just look beyond that lake! You really think the five of us are gonna last three minutes out there?"

Farken looked across the dark lake as his warrior wanted and was surprised to see that the other side of the body of water was rife with were-creatures. Whether or not the lord wanted to admit it, his rebellious crony was right. Fighting against all those furry beasts was suicide, and they'd be cut to pieces in a matter of minutes, seconds even if those were-hares caught up to them. Of course, he couldn't admit that, not without looking weak in front of his comrades, and not without going back home and informing Count Claussim of the bad news.

"Whether or not we last five minutes isn't the point. The point is taking down a few of those mangy hounds with us—"

"I'm not a kamikaze, Farken! I was not sent here just so I could die for—for what? Vampire pride and all that shit Safiria keeps squawking about? If you honestly think that I'm gonna wait here for one more—"

Lord Farken, although not as feral and vicious as his mortal enemies the Lycans, was still very hostile and threatening. He didn't hesitate to show his hostility to his own warriors either, and when one of them back-talked him in this sort of manner, that's when he got mad. So he grabbed the vampire's throat and squeezed so hard that he didn't even have time to squeal or gasp. Farken pinned the rebellious soldier against a tree, choking him so hard that his pale skin was becoming even paler, and a bone or two had been crushed.

"Don't sit there and think that because I'm not an alpha werewolf that I won't kill you the second I deem you a liability! I don't care how you feel or what you fight for. To be honest, I really don't give a shit if you all were tied up and burned at the stake, because all of you are like me: expendable. I know you don't appreciate being cannon fodder, or being slaughtered by those mutts as a form of entertainment, but the least I ask is that you show your pride in being a vampire! When they lift their Slashers and prepare to sever you in two, you look them dead in their eyes and you laugh. You show them all that even in death, we're still gonna laugh and snicker at them, because they're the inferior race, not us! They're the ones who are going to lose this war, not us! So yeah, yeah we're probably gonna die; for all I know Count Claussim sent us on a suicide mission intentionally. But it doesn't matter. You wanna know why? Because when we die, we're gonna look at all those smelly dogs in their eyes and smile, smile widely so the ones who took our lives will be haunted by the visions of our grins until the day they die. Do you understand me?"

The vampire warrior shook his head left and right frantically before pointing behind Lord Farken. The vampire curiously turned around to see what he was pointing at before something grabbed his head and lifted him right off his feet. The vampire lord tried to fight against the entity, but after a few measly seconds, his neck snapped violently and his body became limp. The entity chucked the lord's body aside before staring down at the sole survivor (the other three vampires had been dragged into darkness and were slaughtered by other creatures while Farken was giving his little speech) and grinning widely.

"No…no, it-it's not…it's not possible!"

* * *

"WHOOO! Run back home to your mommies vampire scum!" shouted a burly alpha werewolf.

"What dumbass thought it was a good idea to rush Bunyip Lake with only twenty-one bloodsuckers?"

"Hey, more dead vampires for us!"

"Do you guys know what happened with the four other vampires and their leader?" asked a werewolf warrior.

Another alpha werewolf laughed heartily. "They must be retreating, the cowards! I saw a few vampires bickering amongst each other across the lake. If the other were-creatures didn't get them, I'm sure the Diretooths and other monsters will!"

"If you say so, boss."

The warrior's friend—the same one who was almost killed by two vampires earlier—placed a paw on his shoulder and chuckled.

"C'mon Pawperz! You really think five vampires are gonna come back here and bite us in the ass?"

"No, but it's possible that they could hire—"

"Don't be a worry-wart, Pawperz." said the alpha werewolf.

"They're all gone as far as we're concerned, so we can go back to guarding this area without folly. Not much else to do now that the battle is going on in Razmik Canyon and the Were-King is off running some errands."

"…I guess so."

The group of Lycans disassembled into separate smaller groups and Pawperz and his friend started to head off into a different direction from them all. Pawperz's buddy chuckled and ruffled his hair before leading him over to another section of the lake.

"C'mon buddy! I'll show ya that cavern I found near the edge of the lake!"

As Pawperz's friend started to run towards the cavern, he grunted when he bumped into a WereDragon's furry leg. The warrior shook his head and backed up from the creature so he could look up at its face. Unlike regular WereDragons, his fur was dark blue, and his wings even sparkled a bit. He also looked a bit depressed, nearly on the verge of tears.

"Oh, hey WereDragon. Where were you and all the other hairy dragons when we were kicking ass?"

"It's…well um…I was busy at the time."

"Hehe, I know what that means."

"No, that's not what I'm referring to. While you guys were defending the lake, something ambushed my sons and me, probably more bloodsuckers. One of them is dead, and I don't know if my other son will live much longer."

"That's horrible!" said Pawperz.

"Hmph! Goddamn bloodsuckers and their icy hearts—they have no compassion for anything anymore! Of course, that doesn't give you the right to sit there and bitch and moan about it."

"They killed my boy…" said the WereDragon, his voice cracking.

"Then get angry! Don't mourn the death of your son right now! Release all that bottled up anger and that Lycan pride you have in your heart and focus on ripping all those pathetic excuses of flesh to pieces!"

"Basowl, his son just died! Maybe you should be just a _tad_ bit more understanding right now?"

"Compassion is for moglins and humans. We are Lycans, Pawperz."

"…Anyway…can you take us to your other son?"

"Yes, follow me."

The WereDragon turned around and started to walk towards a subterranean cave near the bank, lowering his head as he started to walk into the pitch black area. Pawperz and Basowl followed the hairy reptile without any hesitation, eager to aid his dying son. Even though Pawperz and Basowl couldn't see anything except for the dragon's hindquarters and tail and wings, their nostrils sure were working well. Basowl sniffed the air a couple of times and waved a paw in front of his nose.

"PHEW! Do you dragons use this cave as a toilet?"

"…Yes, actually, we do. We were…uh…relieving ourselves when they attacked."

Basowl sighed dejectedly and shook his head. "It's a sad, sad day when you're scared of taking a shit because you think someone will stab you in the back."

"Yes…yes, it is."

"Too bad Pawperz wasn't with you guys. The smell of his dung could drive Akriloth away!"

"Is your friend always like this?"

"Yes." said Pawperz, rolling his eyes.

After walking through the cave for a few more minutes, the two werewolf warriors and the WereDragon finally arrived to the center of the lavatory: a giant cave that had tunnels leading to dozens of other adjacent caverns. There was a bright light hanging from the ceiling of the cave, which showed the true nature of the cave. Pawperz and Basowl looked down at the ground and chuckled nervously.

"Hehe…sure are a lotta skulls and bones in here…"

The WereDragon turned around and looked down at the two warriors, his head rather close to their faces.

"Yes…yes there are…"

The blue WereDragon suddenly growled gutturally and snorted a few times, the steam from his nostrils blowing in the werewolves faces.

"You mind telling us why there are so many bones down there?"

"I'm a WereDragon after all. WereDragons gotta eat something and what better than snacking on all the fleshy, innocent creatures in this quadrant?"

"I'm guessing they sometimes…come out whole?"

"Yes, they do."

Pawperz looked around the cave. The WereDragon's son was nowhere to be found.

"Where did you say your son was?"

The WereDragon didn't answer. He just took a few steps forwards and growled again, still snorting. Pawperz suddenly began to think that he just walked into a life threatening trap.

"I got a bad feeling about this…"

"You always have a bad feeling about—"

At that exact moment, Basowl felt something warm splash against his right cheek. The werewolf raised an eyebrow questionably before brushing his fingers against his fur. After he rubbed his fingers together and felt a mysterious warm goop, he looked at his fingers and his eyes grew wide. Blood was all over them. And what made the situation worse was that it wasn't his blood. Basowl looked to his right and noticed that Pawperz was standing dangerously still and staring blankly ahead. A small trail of blood was dripping down his jaw, and there was a thick axe sticking out of his skull. Basowl muttered something inaudibly before he saw more blood oozing down from his friend's head. Pawperz opened his mouth, trying to get out his last words before he succumbed to the wound, but he failed and fell flat on his face after taking two steps forward.

"WHAT—"

An unknown force grabbed Basowl and slammed against his spine, hurling his body clear across the cave and pinning him against the wall. He dropped his Lycan Slasher and started kicking and scratching, snarling as he tried to get away from the entity that had him pinned. He protested for a good few minutes, the creature smiling widely as he watched his prey exert all of his energy so wastefully, before he grabbed him by the throat and started exhaling harshly in his ear.

"LET ME GO YOU COWARD!"

"Can you hear me?" asked the entity, its voice as menacing and deep as it was calm.

Basowl's eyes dilated and he instantly stopped protesting, paralyzed with fear after hearing the creature's voice.

"No…I thought all of you…I thought…"

"I found a way. I know you thought that _they_ were the only ones, but you forgot about me. And now…I believe it's time that I was the one who took charge."

"You can't do this."

"But I _am_ doing this. And you're going to help me."

The creature suddenly began to lash its claws against the werewolf's back repeatedly, making Basowl holler and whine at the top of his lungs. The creature was digging through the flesh, and his claws were so sharp that Basowl could feel the entity's claws grinding against some of his bones. Blood was spewing out of his various wounds and some of his skin and flesh was splattering on the ground. All the WereDragon could do was stare and grin devilishly before the entity dropped the werewolf, who started to whine softly to himself. The creature that attacked him bent down and smiled widely, patting him on the head.

"Don't worry. I can assure you that a majority of your clan will be joining you soon."

"Joining me for…"

Basowl started to convulse and pant rapidly before he started screaming. It would only be a matter of time before he transformed into a dracowolf.

* * *

The vamp punched the beta werewolf clear across his jaw, dislocating it again and knocking out one of his teeth. The hairy light brown beast coughed a couple of times before the vamp realigned his head so he was staring directly at her. She scoffed and shook her head, surprised at how stubborn the oversized mutt was.

"You gonna tell us where Nils-Vex is now?"

The beta werewolf spat in the vamp's face, covering it in blood and slobber. She grimaced before blinking a couple of times and wiping the mess away.

"Okay…so that didn't work." said the other vamp in the room.

"They're Lycans, Sheila. What'd you expect?"

"I'd expect at least one of them to be smart enough to tell us what we want to know."

"You girls really expect us Lycans to squeal just because you hit us in the face a few times?" said one of the beta werewolves.

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure a couple of burly creature's such as ourselves can deal with the likes of you."

Sheila pulled a short silver dagger out of her mesh sleeve and threw it right at the other beta werewolf's throat. The beast's eyes grew wide and he coughed up several splotches of thick blood before gagging and tilting his head down so his chin was resting against his chest. Sheila walked over to the dead canine's body and removed the blade, wiping off the blood and placing the dagger back inside her sleeve. The other vamp who was busy interrogating the other beta werewolf started to rub her forehead as she closed her eyes.

"Sheila…why did you do that?"

"You really think he was going to tell us anything before he died? We're wasting our time here, Winslet!"

"Whether or not we're wasting time, Count Claussim gave us specific orders to interrogate as many beta werewolves as we could so they lead us over to high value targets."

"He also said that we're here to hunt beta werewolves…and from what I can tell we're not doing that."

"So what do you propose we do, Sheila?"

"Convince the Count that all these interrogations aren't working and to get back to hunting all the beta werewolves."

"You know he's not gonna like that."

"Not if we talk directly to the Queen, since she overrules his decisions."

"And who's to say that by doing so, it won't come back around to bite us in the ass? I don't wanna go back to scrubbing the Lords' toilets again."

"Aww, the little bitches having a squabble?"

The beta werewolf yelped when Sheila chucked her silver dagger at him this time. However, her aim was a little off, and she hit the wooden chair the beta werewolf was sitting on, narrowly missing his crotch.

"…Damn, I missed."

Sheila walked over to the chair and removed the dagger before stuffing it back up her sleeve.

"I got an idea that'll make the both of us happy,"

"What, Sheila?"

"You stay here and continue interrogating this beast while I go find Count Claussim and ask him to reconsider his decision with the interrogations. If he changes his mind, we get to slaughter all the Lycans. If not, we'll continue. Sound fair?"

"How do I know when you get back you won't just say that Count Claussim changed his mind just so you can have the satisfaction of killing all these hairy creatures?"

Sheila giggled. "You don't."

"…Right. Well, you go out and do that. I'll stay here."

Sheila walked out of the cabin the beta werewolf was being interrogated in, opening and closing the wooden door before heading back over to the vampire castle in the center of Darkovia. Winslet watched as she sprinted along the ground through the broken window before she leaned against a table, staring at the beta werewolf.

"I don't understand why you worship him, your leader." said the vamp after a long period of silence.

"Because he turned me into the creature you see before your very eyes. He made me a leader—"

"_Almost_, Stolly. He _almost_ made you into a leader of a clan. That's the key word: _almost_. But you're not quite there yet, are you? Don't you ever grow envious of all the alpha werewolves around you who are capable of ruling a small clan by sheer aggression, but you aren't? Doesn't it just eat away at your heart that no matter what you do, you won't be an alpha werewolf? Just a spin-off beta one, a werewolf who _almost_ gets the job done?"

"Hmph! And what about you huh?"

"What about me dog?"

"Doesn't it just eat away at you when you see your friends who half-ass everything they do, yet somehow, they're chosen to be part of Safiria's innermost circle? Doesn't it bother you when they become vamp handmaidens and you don't? Don't you grow envious of them, the vampiresses who climb up the food chain while you, although a proud member of Safiria's Personal Werewolf Assassination Squadron, are nothing more than a common mercenary? Tell me vamp, doesn't that just…what did you say? Eat away at your heart that no matter what you do, you won't be a vamp handmaiden? Just a spin-off one who is looked upon as a thug who cares more about money, than about her pride as a vampiress?"

The vamp stared at the beta werewolf, unable to say anything as the beast's words paralyzed her. But then she saw him grin right at her, showing off his slimy, yellow serrated teeth like it was nothing. He knew that his words got to her, and she knew that he knew it too. The vamp took out a small silver knife from her mesh sleeve and walked over to the Lycan, preparing to kill him.

"Maybe Sheila was right. Perhaps this is a waste of time!"

Right then was when Stolly began to attack. He head-butted the vamp so hard that she flew across the room, smashing through the table she had been leaning on. The beta werewolf grunted several times as he started to jerk his body upwards, attempting to tear the wooden chair straight from the floor of the cabin. With a vociferous roar, he hauled his body upwards, ripping the chair right out of the floor sockets. Unfortunately, he was still tied up to the chair, and walking around with his paws behind his back and a chair strapped to it as well would only hinder his attacks. He needed to get rid of it. That's when he looked up ahead and saw Winslet still recovering from the attack, shaking some of the debris out of her hair. Stolly turned around and ran backwards, the chair aimed directly at her. Before she could move, Stolly pinned her to the wall with a loud crash and they both collapsed to the floor. The chair broke into several pieces and Stolly panted hastily as he hauled his legs into the air and slid his arms down his back and legs so they were in front of him now. Still stunned, Winslet groaned and tried to look for a weapon whilst Stolly began to tear away through the ropes with his teeth. Once he shredded through the material, he jerked his paws away from each other and tore through what was left of the ropes. Winslet finally recovered and started to attack just when he got free. She lunged towards Stolly, punching him in the gut a few times before tackling him to the ground. She hissed as she opened her mouth wide and plunged her fangs into his throat, sucking out some of his blood and stealing some of his health for herself. Stolly roared in pain and started to elbow Winslet in the face repeatedly, eventually knocking her off of him. He rose from the ground, swearing as he held his wound, before walking over to Winslet and kicking her in the torso. Winslet panted as she quickly stood up and threw three knives at him simultaneously. The canine yelped and ducked under all the projectiles before Winslet attacked again, delivering a few blows to his face. She punched him in the jaw again, the eye, and the chest, sucking away a little more health in the process. Having no problems with using dirty tactics, Winslet didn't hesitate to kick the beta werewolf in his groin, which made Stolly grunt sharply and cup his sensitive area as he fell to his knees.

"BITCH!" he snarled.

Then she rushed over to the broken chair and grabbed one of the silver knives she dropped from her mesh sleeve. Winslet noticed that the werewolf was still in pain and decided to attack before she lost her chance. So Winslet charged towards the furry beast and swung her knife down at his head. Only, Stolly moved at the last second and turned around, holding up his left paw so he could block her dagger. Instead of stabbing his head, she wound up plunging the dagger through his paw. Stolly yelped again once the silver began to burn through his flesh like corrosive acid. But the knife was stuck, and Winslet struggled as she tried to remove it. The beta werewolf snarled and stood up, using his right paw to grab her face. Due to alpha and beta werewolves' size, their hands were gigantic, and Stolly's completely covered Winslet's face. He growled gutturally before he started to walk forwards, shoving Winslet in front of him until he pinned her head against the wall. The vamp squealed in a muffled voice as she tried to break away from the canine's grip, but for some reason it felt like the life was being sucked out of her. The beta werewolf could see several torrents of blood dripping down onto the floor and coating his paw with crimson. After she squealed again, Stolly clamped down on her cranium, simultaneously pressing it against the wall, until he heard several loud crunches and the vamp suddenly went limp. Stolly tightened his grip on her head until he heard another sloppy squelch. Stolly finally released his grip on the pale vampire before letting her body fall to the floor, her head drenched in blood after having her skull crushed. The beta werewolf looked at his other paw and noticed the knife still stuck inside of it, burning his flesh. Stolly inhaled sharply and grabbed the knife with his other paw, despite the fact the handle was also made of silver. He started screaming loudly as he gradually removed the weapon and burned his other paw as well. Once the weapon was out, Stolly shouted in frustration and slammed it against the floor.

"SHIT! I just remembered they make their handles out of silver too."

Stolly looked outside to make sure that the coast was clear before he sighed, opened the door, and began to look for other beta werewolves in need of rescuing.

* * *

Stolly had run around the forest for nearly an hour before someone tackled him to the ground. The beta werewolf snarled and jerked his body around to look at the perpetrator: a standard vampire warrior. Although, he wasn't carrying his sword with him.

"Wait a second—OW!"

Stolly clawed at the warrior's face and shoved him off his body. The vampire held his wound—there were three massive scars on his cheek and eye—before he held up his hands and backed away.

"Just wait a minute. WAIT!"

"Give me one good reason why I should listen to you!"

"Because there's something out there trying to kill all of us. All the vamps are gone and I s…I think I saw a dracowolf."

"You're lying."

"If I was lying, why would I even be talking to you right now!"

"This could all be a trap you and the vamps are pulling so you'll ambush me when I least expect it!"

"Think about it Lycan! Do you see anyone around? Do you hear any other vamps? Do you hear any other beta werewolves howling in pain as they interrogate them? It's so quiet you can hear a butterfly flapping its wings!"

"…Now that you mention it…"

"Just…just follow me Lycan. And be quiet!" he snapped.

The beta werewolf was still apprehensive about the pale warrior, but he knew something about the situation didn't smell right. Sheila still hadn't returned, and he hadn't spotted a single vamp out looking for him in retaliation for killing Winslet. Not only that, but the vampire warrior seemed to be scared of someone…or something, and it wasn't him. The warrior didn't hesitate to tackle him to the ground, despite his bulky exterior and fierce behavior. Stolly followed the warrior for a couple of minutes, heading into a dark set of trees before the warrior hid behind a bush and crouched down.

"Get down!" he snapped again.

Stolly crouched down next to the warrior and looked ahead into an open area nearly as big as a soccer field. The area was littered with several draconic hybrids, including alpha dracowolves, dracowolves, dracovamp lords, dracovamps, etc. Stolly's eyes grew wide at how many of them there were, and was even more surprised that a few drakel warriors, WereDragons, and even a draconic moglin was there in the field.

"What…?"

"See? I-I told you I wasn't lying. See?"

One of the dracowolves started grasping his head and shouting in pain. A mysterious red figure descended from the sky and stepped in front of him to assist him. His back was turned to the vampire warrior and Stolly so they could see who he was, but he had red fur and a long, smooth tail that matched the ones the draconic hybrids had.

"CHANGE ME BACK! JUST CHANGE ME BACK AND STOP ALL THIS PAIN!" cried the dracowolf.

The red creature shook his head. "Don't fight it, Basowl. All you have to do is give in and stop all your protesting. I assure you, it is better this way."

"NO! I won't join you monsters! My loyalty lies with the Were-King and no one else!"

"But the Were-King isn't the proper one to lead, nor Safiria, nor Wolfwing. Artix, Galanoth, Lord Cyrus, Eselgee, even E—they're all inferior. I am the perfect one. I am the one who can change this world for something better. Don't you want to be perfect?"

"NO! Not when someone like _you_ is in control of me!"

"I myself am not controlling you. You are just fighting the draconic blood coursing through your veins. I strongly advise you not to do so. Give in to it. Embrace your perfection, for you are a dracowolf now, not a werewolf."

Basowl heard his heart beating very slowly and suddenly, his head wasn't hurting anymore. He was thinking clearly now, and knew that there was no point in fighting it anymore. He was a dracowolf, and he was happy.

"I…I'm a…dracowolf."

"That's right, Basowl. And who do you serve?"

"I serve you, Hellbane. I serve the almighty Hellbane and no one else." he said, his voice suggesting that he had been hypnotized.

"That's a good boy." said Hellbane, patting Basowl on the head.

"And I am astonished by how effective your plans worked, Ferwodem."

The blue WereDragon lowered his head and smiled as he bowed to his master.

"It was all of us, really. There's no need for any special treatment, Hellbane."

"If it wasn't for you, then we wouldn't have found Basowl and his clan and killed or transformed all of them, would we? Not to mention you had a rather touching sob story that managed to draw some of them away."

"Please, Hellbane. Everyone here should receive credit for our accomplishments."

Hellbane chuckled evilly. "If you insist. Now, I know some of you believe that our army is small—some would even go as far as saying miniscule—but this is just the start of our glorious reign! By the time this war is over, all those filthy humans and hybrids and monsters who stand in our path with bow down to me, to all of us! Everyone in Lore will know of the name 'Hellbane' and will cower away in fear! I am Hellbane! The new Lord of all Dracopyres!" he screamed triumphantly.

The army standing in front of him all whooped and cheered triumphantly, some chanting Hellbane's name while others just hollered or howled as loud as possible. Hellbane turned sideways and revealed his face to Stolly and the warrior hiding in the bushes. His face looked canid, but he had wings resembling all his warriors infected with draconic blood. In fact, the only thing that made him look any different from Nightbane was his red fur and his orange underbelly. But everything else—the tail, the wings, the spikes on his chin, the ears and eyes, the teeth and fangs, the chiseled body—they all looked similar to Nightbane. Stolly and the warrior knew that taking on an army of this magnitude, let alone taking on Hellbane himself, was suicide. They quietly moved backwards from the bushes and back onto the dirt path that the warrior ambushed the beta werewolf on, and started to sprint in the opposite direction. They had dire information that their superiors needed to hear about as soon as possible.


End file.
